


Construction of a Gingerbread House

by ScribeofArda



Series: lay down my heavy load [2]
Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Angst with a Happy Ending, But I'm still gonna make it hurt, But at least they are idiots together now, Domesticity, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Illya and Gaby are bffs, M/M, Mostly an excuse to write Napoleon and Illya as a couple, Napoleon and Illya are a power couple, The boys are still both idiots, This is closer to a legit coffee shop au, some semblance of a plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-24
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:21:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 52,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26617384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScribeofArda/pseuds/ScribeofArda
Summary: Illya sets the file down on the counter between them. The sound echoes through the shop.A mug is placed down in front of him. Napoleon presses a quick kiss to his cheek and then he’s back into the chaos behind the counter. Illya watches him work for a long moment, watching his hands as he makes coffee after coffee. His book is forgotten in his lap.He remembers the coffee in front of him when Napoleon sends a grin his way and picks it up from the table. It’s perfect, as always.The story about what happens after.
Relationships: Illya Kuryakin/Napoleon Solo
Series: lay down my heavy load [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1918252
Comments: 241
Kudos: 293





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! Thank you so much for all the amazing comments on the final chapter of The Ethical Limit of Coffee, those made my week and I loved every single one of them. This sequel picks up immediately after the end of Coffee, so maybe remind yourself of that last scene before diving into this one if you've forgotten what happened. This sequel has less of a plot than the first story, as it is mostly scenes that I wanted to put into Coffee but couldn't fit, though Markos' storyline will be a big plot point a little later on. As the tags promise, a little less angst and a little more fluff for this one, given that Napoleon and Illya are already together, but there is still angst in places, because I cannot help myself. This story won't make much sense if you haven't read the first one, so if you're new, maybe start there.

So, how long do you think I have before she kills me?”

Illya hums, considering. Napoleon is warm against him, where they’re nestled together on their usual sofa. It’s dark outside, but in the middle of London it doesn’t matter much. People wander past, huddled into their coats against the wind, but inside it’s warm and quiet and safe.

“Depends,” he replies. “She’s still asleep in my bed right now. We stole most of the good alcohol from Caraceni’s drinks cabinet before we left, and she had lot of pastis last night. Once she wakes up, I might be able to give you couple days head start.”

Napoleon leans more heavily into Illya’s side. He tangles his fingers with Illya’s, gently tugging Illya’s hand over to rest on his leg. “Well, don’t bother, because I’m not going anywhere,” he says. “Just let me know if I need to threaten withholding caffeine.”

Illya gives into the urge to rest his head down on Napoleon’s shoulder. They only came back late last night. He’s still exhausted. Still aching from the past few weeks of UNCLE being compromised and Irma Caraceni and everything that has happened. He’s still reeling from walking in here only a few minutes ago to find Napoleon here, waiting for him, and for finally finding some semblance of courage and kissing him.

Napoleon’s hand comes up to brush lightly through his hair. “You good, Peril?” he asks softly.

“Just tired, Cowboy,” Illya mutters. “I’ll talk to Gaby when I get home, make sure she doesn’t eviscerate you. She might…she can hold grudges. It might take her little while. I’m sorry, Cowboy, I know-”

“She’s your best friend, she has every right to hate me,” Napoleon says, his voice small. “I’m still reeling from the fact that you definitely don’t hate me.” He clears his throat. “Unless I’ve severely misread all the kissing in the past few minutes.”

Illya snorts. “I doubt it, Cowboy. In case it is not obvious, I like you. A lot.”

He can feel the laugh reverberate through Napoleon’s chest. “Eloquently put,” he says. “But yes, I like you too, a lot.” He sighs. “It’s been a long fucking few weeks. Do you…are you getting some time off, now?”

Illya nods against Napoleon’s shoulder. “I need to go in tomorrow morning, sign off on some things and tell them where I’m going to be, and then I have week off. Then it is probably paperwork and training for month or so before we’re sent out again.” He sighs, trying not to give into the urge to let his eyes slip shut. “It is good to be able to talk about this with you.”

Napoleon’s hand stills briefly as it runs through Illya’s hair. “It’s going to take a bit to adjust to it,” he admits. “We should have a proper conversation about all this, I know I should definitely fill you in on…well, a lot. But it can wait until you’re not about to fall asleep on me.”

Illya hums. He’s too tired to think too hard about it, or to panic over everything that he and Napoleon should probably talk about. It’s not the time for it, not when Napoleon has resumed brushing his fingers through Illya’s hair, when his body is so warm against him. When he can still feel Napoleon’s lips on his.

“We are…this is a relationship, yes?” he asks after a few minutes.

“Well, I’d certainly like it to be,” Napoleon replies. He pauses. “We don’t have to put a label on it, if you don’t want to,” he says. “And we can have this conversation another time when we’ve both had time to adjust. And sleep. But… I’d like to call you my boyfriend, and I’d like you to call me yours. I’d like to take you out on dates, and be taken out on dates, and just spend time with you, in between my job and yours and avoiding getting shanked by Gaby when she catches me on my own.”

Illya huffs a laugh. “I won’t let her do that,” he says. He leans into Napoleon again, tucking his head against the crook of his neck. “But yes to the rest of it. Sounds good, Cowboy.”

“A ringing endorsement,” Napoleon says, and Illya can feel the reverberation through his chest as he laughs quietly. “We’ve got plenty of time to work it out. For now, I figure we just go on before, but with more…kissing and making out and things like this.” He runs his fingers through Illya’s hair. “Whatever pace you want to set, Peril.”

Illya stifles a yawn against the fabric of Napoleon’s shirt. “The pace I want to set right now is to go to sleep,” he mutters. “And to check Gaby hasn’t destroyed my flat trying to cook whilst drunk.” He groans, and reluctantly pushes away from Napoleon’s side. “I need to go into office tomorrow, like I said. Sign some things off. I can stop by?”

“I would love you to,” Napoleon says. He gets to his feet with a groan and pulls Illya up after him, keeping hold of his hand to tug him close. Illya goes willingly, pressing a soft kiss to Napoleon’s lips. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Peril,” Napoleon murmurs.

Illya kisses him one more time, a thrill running through him that he can do this now. “Tomorrow,” he replies, reluctantly pulling away. “If Gaby hasn’t burned my flat down.”

0-o-0-o-0

Illya carefully pushes his bedroom door open. It’s dark inside, only a faint sliver of light finding its way through the blackout curtains that he has a vague memory of drawing tightly shut before falling into his bed, drunk and exhausted and trying not to think about it all. Gaby has sprawled out across his whole bed since he left, still completely unconscious. She didn’t bother to change out of her clothes, and he can see her shoes peeking out from under the duvet.

He gently sits down on the edge of the bed. “Chop shop girl?”

Gaby stirs. She mutters something unintelligible in German, rolling over and pulling the covers up over her head.

Illya pulls them back down again. “Gaby.”

“I don’t _want_ to go to dance class,” Gaby murmurs.

Illya pokes her hard in the side. She sits up with a snort, flailing against the duvet. “Wha- Illya?”

“You can’t stay asleep forever,” Illya says softly. “How are you feeling?”

Gaby groans, rubbing at her eyes. “Like I got hit by a truck,” she says. She pauses. “I didn’t get hit by a truck, did I?”

“Not for lack of trying, chop shop girl,” Illya says. He brushes a lock of hair out of her face. “Not for lack of trying. I’m going to make some food. You should soak up all the alcohol in your blood.”

Gaby groans, and hauls herself off Illya’s bed. “Give me ten- no, twenty minutes to try and drown myself in your shower and use up all your hot water. I’ll take pancakes and bacon and caramelised apples, please.”

“I wasn’t taking orders,” Illya says after her, but Gaby has already dragged herself and all of Illya’s spare towels into the bathroom. “Shut the door!” Illya calls after her.

“Like you even care!” he hears Gaby shout from the bathroom. “Food, Illya! I need food.”

Illya starts cooking. He’s not any good at it in general, but he’s learned a few dishes out of necessity, and even he can pull off cooking pancakes after enough practice.

There’s still a stain on the ceiling from where Gaby dared him to flip a pancake, but Illya lost any confidence in getting a security deposit back on his flat the first time he put his fist through the plasterboard and spent his day off looking up how to fix walls. He whisks up pancake batter, starts melting some butter and sugar together for the apples, and spends five minutes hunting through his fridge for wherever he put the bacon last.

“What are you singing?”

Illya jumps as he slides the last pancake onto the plate. He hadn’t realised he’d been humming the music from the black swan _pas de deux_ in act three of Swan Lake. His feet are moving to the music in his head, socks slipping on the wood floor as he moves into _plié, relevé, en pointe_ before returning to _plié_. It’s been decades since he last stepped foot in a studio, but the teachers of his childhood drilled these things deep into his bones.

Gaby steps into the kitchen, a towel balanced precariously on her head. Illya keeps an eye on the bacon bubbling merrily on the stove as he rewraps it for her around her damp hair. “Swan Lake,” he says. “Breakfast- supper- food is nearly done. Here, take a plate.” He presses a plate of pancakes into her hand, ladling caramelised apples over the top.

“You’re in a good mood,” Gaby says as she settles at the kitchen table, pockmarked and scarred from years of abuse. “How are you not horribly hungover?”

“Because I did not drink an entire bottle of pastis?” Illya asks. “Nobody asked you to do that, by the way, so you are only person to blame.” He takes the pan of bacon from the stove and deals it out between them. “Eat. Soak up all that alcohol.”

Gaby eyes him. “You _are_ in a good mood. Why? We’ve only been back from this entire fucking mess for a day, a mess which involves-” She breaks off, and her eyes narrow. “You’re already dressed. And you were cold when you woke me up. You’ve been outside already.”

“Nothing gets past you,” Illya remarks as he cuts into his pancakes.

Gaby gasps. “Oh, tell me you didn’t.”

“Can’t do that if you don’t tell me what you think I did,” Illya says with a shrug. His phone buzzes in his pocket and he pulls it out, checking the screen as he takes a bite of pancake.

_Dinner some time this week? As a proper date?_

When Illya looks up from typing out a reply, juggling his phone one-handed with his forkful of bacon, Gaby is eyeing him suspiciously. “Who was that?”

Illya sets his phone down on the table. “Napoleon.” He holds his hand up before Gaby can say anything. “I went to the shop earlier. He was there. He…he didn’t leave, Gaby. He could have disappeared completely, and it would have been impossible to find him again. But he stayed.”

“And…” Gaby says warily.

“And I kissed him,” Illya blurts out. “I kissed him, Gaby. And he kissed me back.” His cheeks feel like they’re burning. He can’t keep the smile off his face, though is dims and wavers the longer that Gaby stares at her plate and won’t look at him. “Gaby.”

Gaby purses her lips. “He’s a criminal, Illya,” she says. “He’s a thief.”

“Was,” Illya says. “He says he gave it all up, Gaby, and I believe him.”

“He’s still a criminal. Put him up in front of an international court and he would be convicted.”

Illya pauses. “Without Waverly’s protection, so would I.”

“Illya!” Gaby stares at him, eyes wide. “How is what you were forced to do in Moscow even remotely the same?”

Illya’s lips twist in a wry smile. “You’re right. What I did was much worse than stealing a few paintings.”

“Illya!” Gaby looks like she’s about to spring from her chair, and Illya isn’t sure if she means to slap him or throw a pancake at him. “You- _god_ , you are infuriating!”

Illya cuts himself another piece of pancake. He can feel Gaby’s glare on the side of his face, but it’s easy to ignore it at the moment. There’s an inescapable bubbling happiness that surfaces at the mere thought of Napoleon, of finally getting what he has wanted for so long. Gaby’s glares can’t send it running. “Give him a chance,” he says eventually, when Gaby still hasn’t let up. “Please, Gaby.”

“I just…” Gaby shakes her head. “I don’t understand how you can forgive him so easily, Illya. He lied to you. He broke your heart! And now it’s just…what, it’s just all okay?”

Illya sighs. He’s still too tired for this. “I…it’s not just all forgotten, Gaby. But he didn’t lie. No, hear me out,” he says as Gaby opens her mouth. “He did not tell us about his past, no. But it wasn’t an act. It wasn’t one big con. He really means it, Gaby. I think he really does.”

“You’re not the type to go on blind faith,” Gaby points out.

“Well maybe I should,” Illya snaps at her. “Maybe I should take…what is it the Americans call it? A _leap of faith_. We are both paranoid enough already, and I am tired of it, Gaby. I am so tired of it.”

He runs his hand over his face. “All of this reminded me that I don’t have to…I don’t have to let what I do now be controlled by what I was. Which was a trained killer, Gaby. Far worse than thief.” He shakes his head. “I want to be _happy_ , Gaby. I want this all…I want it to be worth it.”

“Illya,” Gaby says softly.

“I am so _tired_ of just getting hurt,” Illya gets out. “Of everything ending badly and never getting better, of not even trying to make it better because what’s the point? I’ve seen how it works before.” He lets out a shaky breath. “I just…I’m so tired of it, Gaby. And he…he makes it all easier.”

“He makes you happy?” Gaby asks softly.

Illya can’t help the soft smile that comes across his face. “He does. He has for a long time now.” His expression softens. “You gave me so many chances when I first came here. I’m just asking for one, for Napoleon. Just one.”

Gaby sighs. “You know, sometimes I forget that you do have a damn good way with words when you need it.” She pushes a piece of bacon around her plate. “I’ll give him a chance. One. If he fucks up again, I will hunt him down and make him pay.”

Illya gets up from the table. Gaby eyes him warily, but he just rounds the table, cups her face in his hands and presses a kiss to her forehead. “Thank you,” he says quietly.

Gaby bats his hands away. “Eat your pancakes before they get cold,” she just says, but there’s a smile on her face, and she briefly squeezes Illya’s hand. “We still going to do our usual post-mission ritual?”

“Ice cream, vodka and bad movies?” Illya asks. He smiles back. “Blades of Glory is on Netflix now.”

“Excellent.” Gaby stabs a piece of bacon. “In another life, I could have been a professional figure skater. I bet I’d be good at it.”

Illya hums. “Keep dreaming, chop shop girl.”

0-o-0-o-0

Illya drags himself out of bed when the sun gets too bright through the gap in his curtains. Gaby grumbles something and steals his pillow as Illya grabs some clothes and slips from his bedroom.

Gaby will go back to her own flat today or tomorrow, once they’re both satisfied that the other is okay. It’s a habit long since established over the years, a ritual of bad movies and junk food after hard missions that allows them to slowly come back down from the adrenaline and the rush, restore some sort of equilibrium. For now, though, Illya leaves her hogging all the bedcovers and heads into the office.

Things are slowly returning to normal. Agents are circulating the main bullpen, and Illya, now he’s looking, spots multiple of Napoleon’s reusable takeaway cups resting on desks or in hands. A few people greet him as he brushes past. “I thought you were off!” someone calls as Illya weaves between agents.

He turns to see April, coffee and pastry bag in hand. “Seriously, go _home_ , Illya,” she says with a grin. “This whole thing took it out of you and Gaby most of all, and you really need a break.”

“They targeted you as well,” Illya reminds her. “You got in later than us.”

“Ah, but I took the time to steal myself an armoury,” April says. “And drag Mark out of the mess he had ended up in. And we didn’t have to deal with all the shit that went down at the Caraceni’s house.”

“You’ve read the report?”

“I read the room when I got there,” April says. She shakes her head. “Sometimes I think we actually do live in a spy novel. Anyway, I’m only here to sign off on some stuff, then I’m going out on a spa day. You?”

Illya shrugs. “Sign off on the week off I have, and then…” He hesitates. “If I tell you something, will you promise not to spread it around the rest of the agents?”

“Oh, gossip?” April asks with a grin. She studies Illya’s face for a moment, her grin fading, and then tugs him out of the main bullpen with a hand on his elbow. “Sure,” she says, her voice softening. “I won’t say anything if you don’t want me too.”

Illya glances around at the agents moving around them. “I…I have a date, tomorrow evening.”

April’s eyes light up. “Ooh, Illya, look at you! Who is it? Have you known them long? Are they nice? Who asked who out? Is this your first date?

Illya holds up his hands. “Calm down.” He hesitates. The other agents are going to find out eventually, especially seeing as he’s now realised just how many of them sneak downstairs and across the road to Napoleon’s for their caffeine fix. He doesn’t want to have to watch his back amongst his own team. “To answer your questions, I- uh, we’ve been friends for a while now, this is our first proper date, and you know them.” He nods at the coffee and pastry bag in April’s hand. “ _He_ makes the coffee everyone seems to be addicted to around here.”

April’s eyes go wide. “Oh. _Oh_. Ooh.” A wide grin spreads across her face. “Good on you, Illya! I don’t know him that well, but Solo is always lovely when I go in there at lunch. And he is _very_ good looking. Nicely done, Illya. Very nicely done.” She pats him on the arm. “Can I get free coffee now?”

“Not a chance,” Illya says quickly. “Don’t even try. He- he does know what this place is. I went to him after Caraceni sent people after me and I was hurt, so I had to explain what I do and what this place is. Just in case.”

“So, you’re saying that I can’t blackmail him for free coffee?” April asks.

“Leave him alone,” Illya says sternly, but he can’t help the smile that curls his lips. “This is only our first date. Maybe later I can sneak some pastries up here. Only in emergencies.”

“You’re the best,” April says. “Now, go do your paperwork so you can go see your _boyfriend_.”

Illya can’t help his smile, and April laughs in glee. “Oh, look at you! Hate to tell you, but you’re smitten, Illya. Completely smitten.”

“I am not-” Illya sighs. “Yeah. Little bit.” He glances over his shoulder. “I better get the paperwork done, and leave you to drink your coffee before it gets cold. I’ll see you later.”

“Yep, see you later. And enjoy your date!” April’s grin softens, and she grabs his arm as he turns away. “Thanks for telling me, Illya. I promise I won’t say a word about it to anyone else unless you want me to.”

Illya can’t keep the smile off his face as he walks down the hallway. He gets a few weird looks for it, but he can’t bring himself to care.

0-o-0-o-0

Napoleon has just finished showing the new barista he hired how to work the till when the bell over the door rings. He glances up to see Gaby standing, arms folded, in the doorway.

“Ah.” He turns to Meg. “Can you handle the till with Rick making the coffees for five minutes? I just need to have a conversation with dear Gaby here.” He pulls his apron off and beckons Gaby through to the back. “Come on, let’s not scare the customers when you eviscerate me. All the blood would get very unsanitary.”

He leads Gaby back into the kitchen and shuts the door behind them. “So,” he says, sitting down at the metal table in the middle. “How are you doing? You okay after everything that went down in Italy?”

Gaby glares at him, and Napoleon can abruptly see how drug empires and crime families fall to the woman standing in front of him. “The only reason I’m not currently eviscerating you is because I love Illya, and somehow he has managed to find it within himself to forgive you.”

“Something I’m incredibly grateful for,” Napoleon says quickly. “I’ve already had the chance to apologise to him, but I haven’t talked properly to you, so I’ll say it now. I’m _so_ sorry, Gaby. I didn’t mean to lie to either of you, I just…it’s not something you exactly bring up in conversation. And then once I knew both of you, I…I was scared. I was falling _hard_ for Illya, and I liked you a lot, and how the hell do I bring up a criminal background I just wanted to forget?” He waves a hand around him at the kitchen, the open pantry with ingredients spilling out, the bags of coffee stacked up in one corner, the pervasive clutter that comes with never having enough time to do a proper deep clean. “All of this is real, Gaby. I don’t like what I did those years, I don’t like the person I was back then. I’m just trying to do better.”

Gaby gives him a long, uncomfortable look. “Wow,” she says eventually. “You really are charming when you want to be.”

Napoleon holds his hands up. “I’m not trying to charm you, or swindle you, or do anything other than tell you the truth. I know it’s probably not worth much to you right now, but I promise that I’m just trying to live my life now. Hopefully, with you and Illya in it. If you’ll have me.”

Gaby scowls. “You know, you’re making it really hard for me to be mad at you right now, Solo.” She sighs, dumps her bag onto the table and slumps into a chair. “Illya asked me to give you a chance. I love him, and he seems to be really happy with you, now that you’ve finally stopped this perpetual dancing around each other, so I’m going to try. For Illya’s sake, and because I would really like to believe that this whole thing wasn’t some big act.” She rakes a hand through her hair, abruptly looking much younger and more tired than she had a few moments before. “I really, really want to believe you, Solo. But I didn’t get where I was without being a paranoid motherfucker.”

“Neither did I,” Napoleon says wryly. “I’m taking somewhat of a leap of faith here, which is pretty new for me as well. I just…I just want to run my coffee shop. Keep half of your agency supplied with caffeine and pastries. Take Illya out on dates, be taken out on dates by him, generally spend time with the first proper friends I’ve had in a long time.” He runs his hand through his hair. “I…I don’t know what I can do to persuade you that it wasn’t an act.”

“Do you ever think about going back?” Gaby asks.

Napoleon huffs a laugh. “Gaby, it’s on my mind every damn day.”

That surprises her. He sees her sit up and take notice, eyes narrowing. “Go on.”

Napoleon shrugs. “It’s an addiction, of sorts. I may have quit, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think about it. Doesn’t mean I don’t sometimes get an itch in my fingers that I find really hard to ignore, or a random flare of anxiety when the most stressful thing I do now is face down angry customers. I’ll always remember what that high was like. But I remember better how fucking awful it all was, and how much I don’t want to be that person anymore.”

He remembers those first couple months vividly. The constant skittering under his skin, the paranoia that trailed him from country to country until some days, he could barely remember his own name, his real name, the one he was trying to desperately to cling to in the wake of abandoning everything he had thought made him.

He had wandered for months around Europe, feeling like he barely existed. He had returned any pieces he still had lying around in his possession, and done his best to disappear from everyone who had ever known him.

It had been months of odd jobs, of floating around Europe and slowly gravitating towards the anonymity of a city as old and British as London. After a month wandering around the city, drinking far too much sub-standard coffee at self-proclaimed hipster cafés, he struck open the idea of his own place, of something to do to try and suppress the shake in his hands.

“I’ve promised myself that I won’t go back to it,” he tells Gaby. “And I’m happy to answer whatever questions you and Illya might have about what I used to do. But please, Gaby. I want to stay here. I want to have a life here. And I’d really like to stay friends with you.”

Gaby stares at him for a long moment. “It’s not going to go back to normal immediately,” she says cautiously. “But I’ll try.”

Napoleon lets out a sigh of relief that he hadn’t known he’d been holding. “Thank you,” he says quietly.

Gaby hums. “Now. Let me explain to you exactly what I will do if you break Illya’s heart.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I absolutely adore writing Illya and Gaby's relationship and that sibling banter, so expect more of it to come. Gaby can hold a grudge, and hasn't gotten to where she is by not being paranoid about people who could hurt her, but she'll come around. Her shovel talk was the most terrifying thing to ever happen to Napoleon, and he has a few sleepless nights after that.
> 
> It's a bit much to keep to a proper publishing schedule right now with everything going on, but I'll be able to get a chapter up at least once a week (hopefully). As always, kudos and comments are much, much loved.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for the amazing response to the first chapter, you're all the best. I don't really know what's going on with this chapter, but it was a lot of fun to write, so hopefully you'll enjoy! No first date in detail, I'm afraid, that might have to wait for a later oneshot, because despite having written an entire sequel to contain all the details I didn't fit in the first story, I still have yet more ideas that didn't make it in here.

When Illya eventually manages to get through the mountain of paperwork left for him on his desk and sign off on his time off for the rest of the week, his stomach is growling. He dodges the various crowds in the bullpen, running down the stairs and jimmying the back door open. It’s cold outside, the sky threatening rain, and Illya jogs across the street to the familiar glass door.

There are two baristas behind the counter, dealing with the beginnings of the lunch rush. “Illya ducks behind the counter and towards the back. “Uh- sir, you can’t go back there,” one of the baristas says nervously. “Sir?”

“It’s fine, Meg,” Napoleon says as he appears in the kitchen doorway. He tucks the tea towel back into the string of his apron, wiping traces of flour from his palms. “Illya, this is Meg. She’s just started here. Meg, this is Illya. He can come back here whenever.”

“Does this mean I can take food from the fridge whenever I want, Cowboy?” Illya asks. “Even when you’re not here?”

“Meg, if you see him stealing food, just throw a spoon at him. That’s my usual tactic.” Napoleon grins at Illya, but it’s lacking something. “Hey, Peril. Finally got everything signed off?”

“Five days leave, and two more weeks of paperwork,” Illya says. He hesitates, then steps forwards and presses a soft kiss to Napoleon’s lips, cupping his jaw with one hand. “Hi, Cowboy.”

Napoleon’s smile softens. “Hi yourself.” He squeezes Illya’s hand. “I can spare a bit of time before the proper lunch rush hits. Want something to eat?”

Illya follows Napoleon back into the kitchen. “Everything okay, Cowboy?” he asks.

Napoleon pauses. Illya can see the way his shoulders tense as he stops rummaging through the fridge. “Gaby came to see me this morning.”

Illya winces. “Ah.”

“Yeah.” Napoleon straightens up, putting some cured meats down on the counter. “She is pissed. And she has every right to be, of course, what I did was really shitty and I’m sorry, I’m still really sorry for not telling you. I know the two of you are really close and the last thing I want to do is come between the both of you, Gaby is obviously incredibly important to you and I don’t want her angry with you because of me-”

“Cowboy.” Illya reaches out and grabs his hand, cutting Napoleon off. “Breathe.”

Napoleon manages a shaky smile. “Sorry, Peril. I just…it’s been a lot, the past couple weeks.”

“I know. What did Gaby say?”

“Mostly I talked.” Napoleon slides into a chair at the table in the middle of the kitchen. “I apologised a lot? Explained a bit about why I decided to do all this, and what I want to do now. She said that she would try, and then explained in detail exactly what would happen to me if I…broke your heart, was how she put it.”

Illya winces again. “Ah.”

“Yeah.” Napoleon huffs a wobbly laugh. “I can see how she makes such a damn good spy. She can be terrifying.”

Illya hums. “I get angry and tend to smash things, Gaby gets angry and makes the entire world revolve around her or pay the price. And yes, she is very good at her job. Better than me.”

Napoleon arches a brow. “I…I feel like I should automatically defend you, and be on your side, but also Gaby is really scary.”

“It’s fine, Cowboy.” Illya shrugs. “I’m the attack dog. I’m incredibly good at the things I am good at, but she is more…ruthless when it comes to what needs to be done to finish the job. Gaby can see the big picture better. Why we make such a good team.”

Napoleon is frowning now. “What?” Illya asks.

“Nothing.” Napoleon’s lips twist. “I just…I don’t know nearly enough about all of this, but I think you’re selling yourself a little short calling yourself an attack dog. You’re much more than that.”

Illya shakes his head. “Don’t worry about it, Cowboy. And don’t worry about me and Gaby. We’ve been through much worse arguments than whatever this is.” He huffs a laugh. “Remind me to tell you the story about Havana when we have more time, now that I can actually tell the full story. Closest we’ve come to shooting each other so far. Literally.”

“Still, the last thing I want is for her to be angry with you because of me.”

Illya hesitates. There’s a slow sinking feeling in the bottom of his stomach. “What are you saying?”

Napoleon frowns at him, and then his mouth falls open in horror. “Oh god, no, Illya, no I’m not at all saying that I don’t want this.” He gets up and hurries around the table, cupping Illya’s face in his hands. “If you say it’s okay between you and Gaby, then I believe you. I’m all in, if you’ll have me.” He presses a kiss to Illya’s lips and Illya tilts his head up to meet him, drawing it out. His hands settle on Napoleon’s hips, pulling him in close.

“You’re all in?” he murmurs against Napoleon’s lips, hot against his. Napoleon answers by kissing him thoroughly, his hands framing Illya’s face.

“I’m all yours,” Napoleon whispers.

Illya loses track of time a little, but Napoleon pulls back far too early for his liking. “As much as I would like to continue this, I do only have about thirty minutes before the lunch rush hits and I am starving. Also, I would like to keep the hygiene rating of this place up.”

Illya snorts, but lets go of Napoleon’s waist. “As long as there is food, then it’s okay.”

Napoleon whips up two quick sandwiches and they eat it at the table, crumbs spilling everywhere. “Got any plans for the rest of your time off, then?” Napoleon asks around a mouthful. “Other than our date tomorrow evening, of course.”

Illya can’t help the grin on his face at that. “Not much. Gym, as much as I can with my side still healing. Need to be ready for Waverly to drop me into the jungle at moment’s notice once I’m back.”

Napoleon arches a brow. “Waverly?”

“Director of UNCLE,” Illya clarifies. “Gaby and I are the head field agents, and we answer directly to him. It isn’t a direct hierarchy, mostly Gaby and I just work together and other partners or teams work together on their own missions, but if there is something larger then Gaby and I take charge. He is the most British man I have ever met.” He takes a mouthful of sandwich. “I’m going to have to tell him that we are together, and that you know about UNCLE. So you can officially be signed off and if something were to happen- not that it will, Gaby and I will reign hell down on anyone who even thinks about coming close to you, but if I don’t go through official channels then it could be a problem.”

Napoleon hums. “What does he need to know?”

“Waverly already knows who you are- that you run this place, and that half his agents are addicted to your coffee,” Illya explains. “I just need to tell him your name, that we are in a relationship, and explain that it was you I went to after getting hurt and had to explain that I worked for UNCLE. Probably will have to say that you were once military, so it isn’t too odd that you were able to help. That’s it.”

Napoleon nods. “That’s fine, then. As long as it’s not too much.”

“No more than that, Cowboy.” Illya takes another bite of his sandwich. “He is good boss. Much better than my old one, but according to Gaby I’m not allowed to use Moscow as a standard for anything anymore.” He shakes his head at Napoleon’s questioning look. “Long story. I will tell it, it is just…long. And not very nice.”

“Sorry, Peril,” Napoleon says softly.

“Why?” Illya asks reflexively.

Napoleon gives him an exasperated look, though it’s tinged with an unmistakeable fondness. “I will get post-its out and wander around my shop with the words _this is your boyfriend who cares about you_ until the message is properly drilled in.” He reaches across the table to intertwine his fingers with Illya’s. “Whatever you’re happy to tell me, whenever you’re ready to tell it. I’m not going anywhere.”

Illya rolls his eyes to try and cover up the way his cheeks turn red. “I know, Cowboy.”

“Yeah, well I’ll keep saying it,” Napoleon says with a grin. “Just in case.”

Napoleon goes back out to the front when Meg appears in the doorway, looking frazzled at the number of customers waiting. Illya browses the bookshelves and finds a Terry Pratchett book, an old favourite of his, tucked away on a shelf. He settles in his usual armchair and starts to read.

A mug is placed down in front of him. Napoleon presses a quick kiss to his cheek and then he’s back into the chaos behind the counter. Illya watches him work for a long moment, watching his hands as he makes coffee after coffee. His book is forgotten in his lap.

He remembers the coffee in front of him when Napoleon sends a grin his way and picks it up from the table. It’s perfect, as always.

0-o-0-o-0

Napoleon stifles a grin as the customer takes their coffee and heads back out the front door. It’s been a little over a week since Illya got back, since they got together, and it’s a little odd to look up and not see Illya reading in his armchair now that his week off is up and he’s back at work. But the rest of Illya’s colleagues are more than making up for it.

He’s spotted three agents in the past four days, coming in here and buying coffee as a flimsy excuse to get a good look at him. A couple have even tried to strike up seemingly meaningless conversation as he’s made their coffee, in a bid to get information out of him. Napoleon is sure that there are more agents who have come through that he hasn’t noticed.

Maybe he’ll mention it to Illya. He doubts that Illya doesn’t already know about it in some way. Some of them really haven’t been subtle.

The rest of the day passes quickly, and before long Napoleon is sending the rest of the baristas home as he finishes up. There is pastry chilling in the fridge, ready to be made into croissants tomorrow, and a pan of jostaberries slowly reducing on the stove to make a jam. The bell over the door rings as he finishes stacking up the mugs for tomorrow. “Hey, Peril,” Napoleon calls over his shoulder. “Coffee?”

“Tea,” Illya requests as he slides into a seat at the counter. “Got stuck in meeting and had to have shitty coffee there.”

“Anything important?” Napoleon asks as he points between different loose-leaf teas until Illya nods. He sets up an infuser and leaves the tea to steep. “I thought you said you would be on office work for a while.”

Illya shrugs. “Barring international incidents. And office work doesn’t mean no crises.” He wraps his hands around the mug. “Gaby and I are head field agents for UNCLE, remember. Sometimes we have to run other agents out in the field, which, if something goes wrong, can take a while. Everything is fine,” he says at Napoleon’s expression. “Gaby is clearing up the last things, and then she will probably come and raid all your leftover pastries.” He pauses, and then leans over the counter to press a kiss to Napoleon’s lips.

“What was that for?” Napoleon asks as Illya pulls away.

Illya blushes slightly. “No reason,” he mutters.

“Christ, you’re adorable.” Napoleon steals another kiss as Illya’s blush deepens. “Tea’s ready.”

Gaby appears a few minutes later. Napoleon has a plate of brownies ready for her already that he pushes across the counter towards her. “Part of your continued apology?” she asks, but she reaches out and takes one anyway.

“Somehow, I don’t think you would think any better of me if I did try to bribe you,” Napoleon says wryly. “Even if it’s only with baked goods. No, they’re just leftover brownies. They’ll go stale by tomorrow.”

“Gaby,” Illya chides. “You said you would try.”

Gaby arches a brow. “I never said I would make it easy for you,” she says to Napoleon.

Illya is frowning in that way that means he actually is veering towards upset, but Napoleon just meets Gaby’s gaze straight on. “I wouldn’t expect anything less from a woman who can topple criminal empires,” he tells her.

Gaby abruptly laughs, and something in Napoleon eases. “I’ll give you that,” she says, raising her brownie in a toast. “You’re not so bad, Solo. For a thief.”

“Retired thief,” Illya interjects. “Stop antagonising him, Gaby. And Cowboy, stop feeding her brownies. She put six sugars in her last coffee.” Gaby whacks him in the arm as Napoleon pulls the plate back, and hisses something at him in another language.

“I heard that,” Napoleon says as he makes Gaby a mug of tea. “What?” he asks when he sees her expression. “You think a retired art thief doesn’t speak other languages? My German is atrocious, but I know swear words in more languages than I can count.” He grins. “Most useful thing to know. Now, would either of you care to explain why I had at least three agents in this shop in the past four days to try and scope me out?”

To his surprise, Gaby starts cackling. Illya groans. “People at UNCLE know we are together,” he says to Napoleon. “I let slip to April a few days ago. Everyone is going to know soon enough anyway, the amount of people that come in here to buy coffee, and I don’t-” He hesitates, glancing away. “They’re good people. I don’t want to try and hide from them.”

“You shouldn’t have to,” Napoleon says. He teases one of Illya’s hands away from where it’s wrapped around his mug, running his thumb over the various scars littering Illya’s knuckles. “I would have appreciated a little forewarning, but then it’s not like I would have predicted all of them scoping me out like this.”

“They’re just making sure you’re good enough for Illya,” Gaby says with a grin. “Given that nobody has tried to give you a shovel talk yet, they must think that you’re fine so far. How many is it that you’ve spotted?”

“Three,” Napoleon repeats. “That I’m certain about. A few more that could have been agents, and I’m sure there are more I’ve missed.” He eyes Gaby warily at the expression on her face. “What are you thinking?”

“Oh, just that this is an excellent test for our agents’ undercover skills,” Gaby muses. “What would you say to being part of a little betting pool?”

Illya groans again, and looks like he’s a few seconds from dropping his head onto the counter. “Please, no,” he mutters. “We have enough betting pools already.”

“Yeah, but this one would be _fun_ ,” Gaby says. She pouts at Illya. “Come on. You know we need a new one after Waverly shut down the betting pool on Mark’s trousers.”

“I’m quite sure I don’t want to know the story behind that,” Napoleon remarks. “What sort of bet are you thinking and is this going to get me in trouble with your boss?”

“You’ll be fine.” Gaby takes another brownie and eats half of it in one go. “I won’t need much from you, just a way to know who you suspect and who you’ve gotten right. Then anyone in UNCLE who wants to would be able to bet on how long themselves or someone else can go before you realise they’re an agent. Number of trips down here would be the best way of tracking it instead of days, what with missions and everything. You can only make the call once you’re certain, though, or else it’s no fun.” She hums. “I think the best way to do this would be if we had some sort of code phrase that only you and our agents would know, so you don’t just randomly accuse civilians of being secret agents and give away our whole…thing. And then the rest of it I can handle.”

“This is a terrible idea,” Illya mutters.

“This is hilarious,” Napoleon counters. “I’m in. What sort of phrase are you thinking? It’ll have to be something pretty innocuous if I can say it to random civilians as well.” He drums his fingers on the counter. “What’s the sort of thing that Waverly would order from here?”

“Scones,” Illya says. He shrugs when both Gaby and Napoleon turn to him with almost identical expressions. “What? He said how much he liked them back in Italy. With clotted cream, I think.”

“Well, that’s stereotypically British,” Napoleon says. He nods. “Right. So, I could say something along the lines of ‘next time, you should try the scones and clotted cream’ as they pay, would that work?”

“That would be fine.” Gaby rubs her hands together. “This is going to be so much fun.”

“This is going to get us in so much trouble,” Illya says with a groan. He takes another brownie. “You’re running this, Gaby. I’m not getting involved.”

“You’ll have to be the one to tell people about it, or else nobody is going to participate for fear of angering you,” Gaby points out. “Especially now that they know you know they’re doing this.”

Napoleon walks himself through that sentence to work it out. “That does make sense. Just let me know when people are informed and I’ll start calling it.”

Gaby claps her hands. “Excellent. This is going to be so much fun.” She takes a final brownie and hops off the stool at the counter. “I’ll leave you two lovebirds to it. We have that briefing at eight tomorrow, Illya, so don’t be late. Solo, I’ll let you know when we’re ready to start.” She presses a kiss to Illya’s cheek, waggles her fingers at Napoleon, and then is out through the door.

“She seems…excited by this,” Napoleon says cautiously. “Is this a bad idea? I don’t have to go along with it if Gaby is just getting a bit ahead of herself.”

Illya shakes his head. “Waverly allows harmless betting pools most of the time. It is good distraction for agents, and honestly, it is really good for morale sometimes. Something harmless and silly we can distract each other with.” He shrugs. “As long as they do not get too personal, Waverly allows it.”

“You didn’t seem pretty enthusiastic about it just now,” Napoleon points out. He pauses at the wolfish grin that curls Illya’s lips. “Ah. And you say Gaby is the brains in your partnership.”

“I have reputation to maintain,” Illya says with a grin. “And this way, nobody expects it when I do enter a bet. Makes it easier to win.”

“Money?” Napoleon asks.

“Money, alcohol brought back from missions, small favours.” Illya shrugs. “I once bet an hour of lessons on the range. It can be anything the person running the betting pool thinks is acceptable. It is a complicated system by now, but it works.” He drains the dregs of his tea. “Are you finished here?”

Napoleon takes the empty mug from him and puts it under the counter to be washed tomorrow. “I am. I’ve got the fixings for Cajun steak at home, if you want to come over?”

Illya takes his hand as Napoleon comes out from behind the counter, pressing a quick kiss to his lips. “I’m always up for your cooking, Cowboy. There is a new ballet documentary on the BBC we could watch after.”

“Sounds good, Peril,” Napoleon says, swinging their hands between them. “Sounds really good.”

0-o-0-o-0

Illya leans back in his chair, folds his arms across his chest and listens to Gaby wrap up the briefing to the rest of the field agents arrayed in front of them. There’s about fifteen of them around the large conference table, everyone who is in the country right now, along with a few senior analysts and strategists. A few look half-asleep and seconds away from putting their heads down on the table, regardless of all the files and coffee cups littering the surface, but most of the agents are still hanging on.

As the head field agents, Waverly makes Illya and Gaby review missions and hold briefings every so often, especially after something as big as the Caraceni mission. Illya still isn’t happy that so many agents were caught unawares by her thugs, and that the analysts haven’t found all the holes in their systems yet.

Gaby flips the folder in front of her shut. “So, to summarise, the intelligence failure was not on our part, but we do need to be more careful with international transmissions of data, and work more closely with the analysts back here to be smarter about initial investigations. It’s not really a good strategy to go in guns blazing on every mission, no matter how much more fun it is.”

There are a few muffled chuckles around the table, and a few pointed looks. “Just because the lab develops new explosives, it does not mean they have to be used,” one of the strategists present reminds everyone. “It really makes it much harder to manage our long-term strategy when you piss off people by blowing their buildings up.”

“Anything else?” April asks as she flips her folder shut.

“One more thing.” Illya sits up from his slouch. “It has come to my attention that for some of you, your undercover work is lacking.” He lets his gaze move slowly from agent to agent, watching for who meets his stare and who looks away. “My boyfriend has spotted three of you, in the past four days, buying his coffee as a very flimsy pretence of checking him out. He may know that UNCLE exists, and he may be smarter than most of you give him credit for, but he still should not be able to spot you that easily.”

“Do you…want us to stop?” someone asks hesitantly.

“You’ll have to make him bring coffee here if we’re not allowed down there,” another adds. “And pastries. His lattes are the best I’ve ever had.”

Illya suppresses a huff of laughter at that. “I think if I asked you to never go there again, I would have a riot on my hands.” He glances over at Gaby. “Gaby has an idea. I want no part of this.”

“After the tragic end of the betting pool on Mark’s trousers,” Gaby says to a chorus of groans, “we have another candidate. And before anyone gets concerned, Solo is in on this and thinks it’s a great idea.” She pulls out a new notebook and cracks the spine. “So, who’s up for a little betting pool on how long it takes Solo to work out for each of you that you’re an agent?”

Illya has a hard time keeping the smile off his face as people start throwing out declarations that they haven’t been made. “Keep it quiet,” he says when they start to get a little too enthusiastic. “And don’t bother my boyfriend too much that he complains to me, or we will have problems.”

He listens to the suggestions that people start throwing out, the first bets being made as Gaby jots them down. “Are bribes permitted?” someone asks.

Gaby smirks. “Would somewhat give the game away if you tried to bribe the person guessing whether you are agents or not.”

“No, not Solo,” they clarify. “Bribing him.” They point straight at Illya. “You must know what tells Solo is picking up on, right? He’s your boyfriend.”

Illya arches a brow as Gaby cackles. “And precisely what makes you think that any of you would be able to bribe Illya?” she asks. “What could you possibly offer him that he wants?”

“I’ll buy you coffee?” someone offers, and Gaby hangs her head back as she laughs.

“He’s been getting free coffee before he was even dating the guy,” she says between laughs. “You think that’s good enough? You’re going to have to do much better than that.”

Illya lets it all go on for another five minutes before he shuts his folder and gets to his feet. “Betting pools are allowed on our own time, not on Waverly’s,” he reminds everyone. He pauses at the door. “Annoy my boyfriend and I will make your life hell.”

“Sir, yes sir,” someone calls after him. Illya resists the urge to hold up his middle finger behind him as he leaves. Gaby is such a bad influence on him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The betting pool idea came from a rambled conversation with somedrunkpirate, so you have them to thank for that little bit of insanity. Napoleon is using his powers for good now. And all the other agents are absolutely willing to do anything to keep Illya as happy as he is right now, not just because it means that he isn't as cruel to them when training.
> 
> As always, kudos and comments are much loved.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry the new chapter is a little late, work has been very busy and I have been Adulting on my days off, so posting a chapter kept slipping my mind. Time means nothing anymore. A few more fluffier scenes in this one, before some angst kicks in (because of course it does, it's impossible for me to not write angst into a story).

Things return to some sort of new normal. Waverly has Illya and Gaby on office work for the next couple of weeks, though that doesn’t mean their lives are any less busy at times. Illya still leaves and goes across the street most evenings to Napoleon’s shop, though now Napoleon greets him with a kiss as well as a coffee, and dinner turns into a movie or talking until late and they fall asleep together in Napoleon’s spacious bed.

Napoleon has taken down the Charing Cross painting, which Illya notices as soon as he first enters his flat. “I’ve given it away,” Napoleon just says when Illya asks. “I’ve asked them to wait a bit before revealing that it’s been found, so it should turn up in the news in a few months. I took care to make sure it couldn’t be traced back to me.”

“Cleaning out your stash?” Illya asks as he gets out plates for the curry Napoleon is stirring.

Napoleon tilts his head. “Making some things right,” he says. He stares down at the pan on the stove. “I never stole from public museums, you know.” He huffs a laugh. “Well, you would know. You made the file on me. But I could never bring myself to steal something that belonged to a museum, no matter the price offered. Sometimes I took pieces that were on loan from private collections, because they were easier to get at in the museum than in some rich toff’s estate, but I never took pieces owned by museums.” He laughs to himself, though to Illya it sounds hollow. “Got to draw the line somewhere, I suppose. It helped me feel better, which is probably a very narcissistic way to look at it, but it’s true.”

Illya sets a mat in the middle of the kitchen table. “From what I read, you drew lots of lines,” he offers. “More than the others around you ever did. I know that much.” He reaches out and runs a hand down Napoleon’s side as he passes him to get water glasses.

“I’ve been thinking I’ll give back the other pieces I still have stored away,” Napoleon says over dinner as Illya uses a piece of flatbread to scrape up the last of the dahl. “I don’t have many, I shifted most of them when I decided to retire, but there were a few that were too hot, or I kept around for…I don’t know, sentiment? A backup?” He tears off a piece of flatbread, and then tears it in half again. “But I don’t need a backup anymore, and they’re better off in a museum than squirrelled away in the dark.”

“Whatever you would like to do, Cowboy,” Illya says. He pulls the flatbread out of Napoleon’s hands before he tears it up into too small pieces and wastes it. “Though I don’t know how much I can help.”

Napoleon waves his hand. “I wouldn’t want you to compromise yourself by helping me in any way. I can handle it fine. It’s a very slow process anyway.” He smiles wryly, leaning back in his chair. “I must admit, it’s nice being able to talk about this with you now.”

“Same,” Illya says quietly. He drains his water glass and sets it back down on the table, nudging it across the wood and watching the smear of water it leaves behind. “I know I still cannot tell you details about what I do, but it is good to not…to not lie to you about missions.” He breathes out. “Some of the things I did for Moscow…I am not proud of it. What they asked me to do.”

Napoleon reaches out and laces his fingers with Illya’s. “You don’t have to tell me,” he says.

“I probably can’t, not all at once,” Illya says wryly. “I was in spetsnaz from eighteen. Oleg, my handler at Lubyanka, took me out of the spetsnaz after five years. Once I was in Lubyanka, with my father’s reputation, it was all I could do to keep my head above water. And Oleg…he was very good. I really did believe that I was doing what was good for my country. That it was necessary sacrifice.” He shakes his head. “I know now it was a lie, but for a long time, I didn’t. And when I began to suspect that they had been lying to us, it was too late to do anything about it.”

“How did you get out?” Napoleon asks. “I know you said there was a mission in Italy, where you met Gaby, but I know it took me everything I had to get myself out of the life I was in, and I doubt I had anywhere near the pressure you did on you to stay in line.”

Illya snorts. He taps the scar at the edge of his eye. “This was from Oleg. Ashtray. I didn’t get out of the way quickly enough when he threw it.”

Napoleon flinches slightly. “Jesus, Peril,” he murmurs.

“You’ve seen my scars before,” Illya says, surprised at the grimace on Napoleon’s face. He’s stayed the night a few times now, talking late into the night until they fell asleep, and he spent one night explaining whichever scars Napoleon traced his fingers over until his voice was hoarse and he fell asleep mid-story. Napoleon shouldn’t be surprised at the one scar he’s known about ever since they met.

“Yeah,” Napoleon says, visibly making an effort to smooth out his expression. “But all of those were because of missions. Not because your handler was a vindictive son of a bitch.”

Illya hums. There’s a lot more to it than that, a lot more to those years at Lubyanka where he was too tired to protest at mission after mission, the blood on him still drying as he was sent back out again. Where Oleg ruled over agents who constantly tried to fight each other to the top of the pile because that was the only way they were taught to survive. But it’s been years since then. He and Gaby spent nearly an hour this morning debating whether Lord of the Rings is the best book-to-movie adaptation as they read mission reports. He taught a few younger agents some hand to hand techniques in the gym, and none of them flinched away from him. His boyfriend cooked him dinner.

“What are you thinking, Peril?” Napoleon asks. He smooths his thumb over Illya’s scarred knuckles.

Illya raises Napoleon’s hand to his lips and presses a kiss to the back of it. “I’m happy,” he says simply. “For a long time, I wasn’t. But I am.”

Napoleon looks like he could tear up. “You can’t just say stuff like that,” he gets out, his voice wobbling. “Are you trying to make me cry?” He clears his throat as Illya just keeps hold of his hand. “Anyway. You never did tell me what happened in Italy.”

Illya allows the blatant change of topic and tells him as much as he can about Berlin and Italy, the Vinciguerras, Gaby double-crossing everyone and getting away with it, staring down at a small blue disc and doing the only thing he knew he could do with it, even though he knew it might kill him. And then the offer from Waverly, Gaby taking him by the hand and pulling him onto a plane as he realised that he wouldn’t ever go back to Moscow.

“I knew the Vinciguerras were bad news,” Napoleon says as he settles onto his sofa, “but I had no idea Victoria was that…ambitious.”

“Suicidal, more like,” Illya says. He sits down next to Napoleon and leans into him, Napoleon putting an arm around his shoulder and pulling him in close until Illya can feel the solid warmth of him. “That sort of technology, it doesn’t stay secret. She would have had people coming for it from every organisation. One of them would have gotten lucky eventually, no matter how good she was.”

Napoleon hums. “Well, thanks to you nobody has that technology.” He presses a kiss to Illya’s temple, right where that scar is. “That’s for stopping an international nuclear war.”

Illya turns and presses a kiss to Napoleon’s lips. “And what do I get for all the other international wars I helped stop?” he asks, smiling against Napoleon’s lips.

They end up in Napoleon’s bedroom. Illya pulls Napoleon down onto the bed and meets him in a fierce kiss, Napoleon’s hands running up Illya’s side and pulling his shirt up. Illya frames Napoleon’s face with his hands and tilts his head up, deepening the kiss as Napoleon pushes him down to lie back on the bed. Napoleon moans appreciatively and Illya swallows it. He presses kisses across Napoleon’s jaw and down his throat, chasing his pulse. Napoleon’s hands run across his sides, under his shirt, and Illya sits up enough to pull it off. He discards it in a heap on the floor.

Napoleon traces down Illya’s chest with his fingers, and Illya shivers. “Gorgeous,” Napoleon murmurs, and Illya just has to kiss him again for that. Napoleon pulls away just long enough to focus on his own shirt, undoing the buttons, and Illya pushes it off his shoulders to fall discarded on the bed.

Illya loses track of time as they kiss, as Napoleon’s hands roam across his sides and he shivers under his touch. He runs his hand through Napoleon’s hair and Napoleon tilts his head, deepening the kiss until Illya has to pull away to breathe.

He shifts, sitting up and pushing Napoleon back down onto the bed as he kisses him.

Napoleon tenses.

It’s only for a moment, and then he leans up and kisses Illya back. Illya breaks away and sits up. “Cowboy? You good?”

Something flashes over Napoleon’s face, too quick for Illya to catch. He pushes himself up on his elbow. “I’m fine,” he says. “Come back here.”

There’s a very slight catch to his voice. Illya frowns. “Cowboy. Talk to me.”

Napoleon glances away for a moment. “I don’t- I don’t like being pinned down.”

Abruptly, Illya realises the position he’s in, straddling Napoleon’s lap. He gets off quickly, sitting down on the edge of the bed next to him. “Okay,” he says, lacing his fingers with Napoleon’s where his hand rests on the bedspread. “I’ll remember that.”

“Sorry,” Napoleon says quietly, and the note of uncertainty in his voice makes Illya’s chest ache.

Illya turns to fully face him. “You don’t have to apologise,” he says softly. “You kept telling me that this goes at whatever pace I want to set, yes? So the same is true for you. Whatever pace you want.” Napoleon makes a face at that, and Illya’s frown deepens. “Talk to me.”

Napoleon rubs a hand over his face. “I just- okay, look, Peril. Sex has always been a…a transactional sort of thing, for me. And I know, I _know_ , that’s not the case here. I do know that. I just…” His voice quietens even further until it’s barely a murmur. “I don’t know. I don’t like being pinned down. And then I just remembered…all the rest of it.”

Illya gives into the urge to wrap his arms around Napoleon. “Okay, Cowboy,” he says as Napoleon slumps into his hold. “That’s okay.”

Napoleon shakes his head. “No, it’s fine. I’m fine. We can keep going, it’s fine.”

“Well, I’m not ready,” Illya says firmly. “So there. And don’t even try to apologise. Whatever pace you want, remember? You can’t tell me that and then hold yourself to another standard.”

Napoleon groans into Illya’s shoulder. “You are very logical, you know,” he mutters. “It would be annoying if-”

“If I wasn’t right,” Illya finishes for him. He runs a hand down Napoleon’s back, breathing in the faint smell of his cologne. “This was never going to be a normal relationship, Cowboy, whatever that means. Not with the both of us.” He huffs a tired laugh. “Not when I have no idea what I’m doing.”

“You’re doing pretty swell so far,” Napoleon mutters into his shoulder. “At being a boyfriend.” He turns his head and presses a soft kiss to Illya’s neck. “Even when your boyfriend is being an idiot.”

“He’s not an idiot,” Illya says. He lies down and tugs Napoleon with him until they’re lying back on the bed, Napoleon sprawled across his chest. “He’s just…complicated.” He presses a kiss to the top of Napoleon’s head. “Anything else, and I wouldn’t like him.”

Napoleon shifts so he can look up and see Illya’s face. “You really are something, you know that?” he asks. A small smile curls his lips. “You’re lucky you’re pretty.”

Illya hums. “Damn right I am.”

Napoleon snorts a laugh at that, and elbows Illya in the side. “Gaby is a terrible influence on you.”

“Do that again and I’ll kick you out of this bed,” Illya mutters. He pulls the duvet up over the both of them. “You have to get up early.”

“Says the man who gets up at six voluntarily to go to the gym before work.” Napoleon pokes him in the side again, and arches a brow at Illya’s warning look. “I’m trembling in my metaphorical shoes.”

Illya briefly considers flipping Napoleon off the bed, just to prove that he can. “Do that and I will make you shitty coffee for a week,” Napoleon murmurs, apparently reading his mind as he rolls onto his side, eyes slipping shut as he pulls the duvet around his shoulders. “And I will withhold brownie privileges.”

Illya curls up behind him, arm settling around Napoleon’s waist. “I will break into your shop and steal your brownies,” he murmurs, breath ghosting over the back of Napoleon’s neck.

“Oh yeah, break into the shop of a former thief,” Napoleon remarks. “That’ll end well.”

“I’ll enlist Gaby.”

Napoleon snorts. “Oh, she’ll be easy to bribe. She’s more attached to my brownies than you are.”

“Don’t bribe my partner, Cowboy,” Illya says. “I need her on my side when people start shooting at us.” He can smell the remnants of Napoleon’s cologne, feel the warmth of his body against his, and he relaxes into the bed a little more as sleep creeps up.

“Not making any promises,” Napoleon replies sleepily. “Go to sleep, Peril. Stop planning entry points into my shop. The fire escape wouldn’t work.”

“The fire escape would definitely work,” Illya mutters. His last thoughts are of that slightly rickety hinge on the back door, and then nothing as he falls asleep.

0-o-0-o-0

He jolts from sleep, eyes flying open. There’s a harsh buzzing nearby and Napoleon rolls over, rubbing at his face with one hand. There’s movement next to him, the shift of the mattress, and then Illya sits bolt upright. “ _Telefon_ ,” he mutters in Russian. He’s awake immediately even as Napoleon is trying to shake the sleep off of him, and grabs the buzzing phone off the bedside table to answer it. “ _Da_?”

Napoleon sits up, the sheets pooling around his lap, and watches as Illya listens to whatever is on the other end of the line. “Understood,” Illya says, his voice clipped. “I’ll be there in twenty. Brief me now as much as you can.”

He gets up and grabs his shirt from where it’s hung over the back of a chair, shrugging it on whilst keeping his phone pressed between his shoulder and his ear. “Who?” he asks as he starts buttoning up his shirt. “Yes, yes, I know them.” He pauses, listening intently with a frown on his face. “Well, tell them I am on my way and don’t take no for answer.”

Napoleon reaches over and checks his own phone. It’s nearly three in the morning, only a faint light from the street lamps making it past the windows. Illya is hunting around the room for something, and Napoleon switches on the lamp. “Your shoes are under the chair,” he says.

Illya nods at him, but Napoleon can tell his attention is mostly on whatever he is being told over the phone. He snatches up his jacket and digs out his motorbike keys. “I’m about to leave,” he says into the phone. “Tell Gaby we’re working on Vienna time, she’ll know what it means. I’ll see you soon.”

He hangs up and stuffs his phone into his pocket. “I’m sorry, Cowboy,” he says, pulling on his jacket. “I’m needed at work.”

“At three in the morning?” Napoleon can’t help but ask.

Illya zips up his jacket and shoves his boots on, fingers tugging at the laces. “It’s not three in the morning everywhere,” he mutters with a grimace. “I’m sorry. I have to go.”

“It’s fine,” Napoleon says, even as he shivers a little and tugs the duvet back up around him. “You’re staying in London?”

“Don’t know,” Illya says shortly. “Might have to go out, but I will let you know if I am.” He straightens up, and his expression softens slightly as he crosses the room to where Napoleon is sat on the bed. He cradles Napoleon’s face in his hands and tilts his head up to press a kiss to Napoleon’s lips. “I’ll call, when I can,” he says quietly. “I have to go.”

“Go on,” Napoleon says. He presses one last kiss to Illya’s lips, and then Illya all but runs out of the room. He hears the front door slam a few seconds later, and then it’s quiet.

Napoleon pushes his hair back from his face. “Well, shit.”

There’s no way he is going to go back to sleep now. It’s only a few hours until he would be up anyway to start the shop, so he gets out of bed, pulls on his thick dressing gown and wanders out to the kitchen. He spends a couple hours drafting new recipe ideas, for coffee and pastries, before his actual alarm goes off and he heads into the shop.

It’s a busy day, enough that Napoleon barely has time to eat lunch in between the brunch rush that almost seamlessly flows into the lunch rush, and then into the afternoon yoga mum rush. Both of his baristas are rushed off their feet, and Napoleon makes a mental note, and then an actual note on his office notepad, to look into hiring some more people.

Illya had been giving him grief about only hiring people who fit his so-called hipster aesthetic only a few days ago, and he hadn’t been entirely wrong. When he’d first started this whole venture, he’d barely put any consideration into hiring people beyond what a normal coffee shop would do. What would make sure he flew under the radar.

Maybe if someone had hired a kid down on his luck with no marketable skills other than quick fingers and a silver tongue, and taught him something useful other than picking pockets, he would have made it here by more reputable means.

He sighs, and jots down another note. He’ll print out some job applications and take them down to the veterans’ shelter nearby. If he remembers at the end of the day.

Things fall into that odd lull between towards the end of the day, when there are enough customers that he can’t begin clearing up or disappear back into the kitchen, but not enough to keep him really busy. Napoleon finishes up another drink for a customer and slides it across the counter. “Have a nice evening.”

His phone buzzes in his pocket, and he pulls it out to see Illya’s name flashing up on the screen. “Peril,” he answers. “How’s it going?”

“It’s going,” Illya says. There is chatter in the background, someone calling out numbers and the harsh buzz of static of what sounds like a receiver. “I’m not going to be back tonight.”

“I suspected as much,” Napoleon admits. He presses his phone between his shoulder and ear as he stacks up clean mugs. “Are you staying in London?”

“Unlikely,” Illya says. “But we don’t have enough yet for me to leave. Probably tomorrow. I’ll try and call before I leave, but if I don’t, someone else will let you know.” The background noise briefly increases and then decreases again as someone opens and shuts a door. “I know,” Illya says to someone else, their voice too muffled to hear. “Work through the night if you have to. We need that intel.”

Napoleon eyes the few customers still left in his shop. “Do you need anything?” he asks, drumming his fingers on the countertop as a particular brand of uselessness runs a shiver through him. “Anything I can do to help?”

“Thanks, Cowboy, but I don’t-” Illya pauses. “How much food do you have left?”

Napoleon glances back into the kitchen as he runs some quick estimates in his head. “Enough to feed a bunch of hungry agents, I’m betting,” he says. “I’ll put it together. And make coffee as well. You sound like you need it.”

Illya huffs a laugh. “Is it that obvious?” He sighs, a rush of static over the line. “I’ll send someone to pick it up in twenty. Thanks, Cowboy.” The background noise increases again over the line, and Illya mutters a curse. “I have to go. I’ll try to call when I can.”

“Take care, Peril,” Napoleon says, and then the line is dead.

Twenty minutes later exactly, two people push open the front door and walk in. They’re both in well-tailored suits that have seen better days, shirts rumpled and ties askew. “Solo?” one of them asks. “You’ve got something for us?”

“You don’t need to make it sound like a shady deal,” Napoleon says as he comes out from behind the counter with a box in his arms. “Here, I have sandwiches, brownies, various assorted pastries, and then there’s a second box here with about twenty coffees in it. Illya’s and Gaby’s are marked, the rest are just regular coffee. I’ve dumped a bunch of sugars and creamers in there as well, because undoubtedly whatever I have is better than what’s in your office.” He helps the agent balance the box so none of the coffee spills, and then grabs the door for them. “Hope it helps.”

“We both just had to forfeit the bet to pick these up, they better be good,” one of them mutters. “If this happens often, I’ll making Illya make Waverly give you clearance so you can bring them up yourself.”

“We cannot make Waverly give Illya’s boyfriend clearance to the building just so he can deliver coffee!” the other agent protests. He pauses. “No offense, Solo. But Illya will be seriously mad if we abuse the fact that the two of you are dating just to get coffee delivered instead of coming down to get it ourselves.” He juggles the box of food in one hand and pulls out a wad of cash in the other. “Here. To cover this.”

Napoleon takes it and flicks through quickly to get a rough estimate. “This is way too much money for coffee and leftover pastries,” he says, arching a brow.

“Oh god, I’m not having this debate with you,” the first agent says. “Please just take the money. If we come back with it, we’ll have to explain to Illya why we’ve apparently cheated his boyfriend out of his hard-earned money and then it’ll just be a whole thing. Just…just take it. Please. I don’t want to get shouted at.”

Napoleon reluctantly pockets the money. “Go on, get going,” he tells them. “I’ll be in from six tomorrow if you need early morning coffee as well.”

“You’re a lifesaver, Solo,” one of them says. “Cheers for this.” They dart back across the street and disappear into the UNCLE building, Napoleon watching from the doorway until long after they’re gone.

0-o-0-o-0

“Your boyfriend,” Gaby says around a mouthful of brownie, “is the best.”

Illya takes a gulp of his coffee. “He’s mine,” he says. It’s the perfect temperature and exactly how sweet he likes it, as normal. “Hands off.”

The bullpen behind them is the busiest it’s been for months, agents and analysts darting back and forth, shouting across the room to each other. Illya and Gaby have kicked some junior agents out from a desk and claimed it for themselves, paper strewn out around them in a pattern that only makes sense to the two of them.

Gaby says nothing, and just pulls another file towards her. “We’re going to be sent out tomorrow, I think,” Illya says as he sips at his coffee and watches the rest of the agents distribute coffees and sandwiches to the rest of the bullpen. His has his name scrawled in Napoleon’s looping handwriting across the lid, with a little heart drawn in the corner. He’d managed to avoid Gaby noticing the blush that he knows had coloured his cheeks when he’d spotted it.

Gaby pushes a file in his direction. “This might be something.” She wheels her chair over and peers over his shoulder as Illya flips through the papers. “Hey. Have you heard from Markos recently?”

Illya glances up around them, long-ingrained instinct making sure nobody can overhear them. “No,” he says quietly. “Not since before Caraceni. You think he knows something about this?”

“Russia has fingers in all sorts of pies,” Gaby points out. “Especially here. And didn’t you say that Markos specialises in this region? There’s a good chance he’s involved, or at least knows who is, and we could really use an edge here right now.”

Illya shakes his head. “All true, but I still haven’t heard anything from him.”

“Can you get in touch?” Gaby asks. “If it won’t put him in too much danger.”

Illya stares down at the desk. “Get me an untraceable burner phone and I’ll try.”

He disappears into their office with the burner phone and dials a number he’s long since had memorised. The phone rings, and keeps ringing until it rings out and there’s just silence. Illya curses, and then dials another number that he memorised years ago.

This time, he is answered in crisp Russian. “Hello?”

“Yelena,” Illya says, slipping easily into Russian. “It’s Illya Kuryakin. Please don’t hang up.”

There’s a sigh over the line, a rush of static. “And what is it you want, Kuryakin? Make it quick. It is late here.”

“Markos. Have you heard from him recently?” Illya makes himself sit in his desk chair instead of pacing up and down, leaning back into it and staring at nothing on the opposite wall.

“Of course I have.” Yelena scoffs. “Some friend you are, if you have to call me to find out about him. He was here not a week ago before his handlers had him running off somewhere else. Barely enough time to eat before he was back out the door. She was very upset with him.”

“Is she awake?” Illya asks.

“Of course not. And I will not wake her up for you to make more false promises to her, Kuryakin.”

Illya’s fingers dig into the edge of his desk. “They are not false, Yelena, and you are well aware of that. I will help, in any way that I can.”

“By leaving him behind when you absconded from Moscow?” Yelena scoffs again. “I think not. Markos is alive. Whether he is well or not, I cannot answer, but I think you already know the answer to that. If I see him, I’ll say that you called. Now don’t call again. You know that this is too dangerous for us.”

“I know,” Illya says wearily. “And I won’t. I just had to check.”

“Goodbye, Kuryakin.”

The sound of a dial tone is all that Illya can hear. He sighs, rubs his hand across his face and heads back outside. “No luck,” he tells Gaby as he meets her in the hallway. “He didn’t answer.”

Gaby purses her lips. “Well, we’ll just have to get on with it then,” she says. She links her arm with Illya’s and pulls him back into the bullpen. “Forget about it for now. We have a job to do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so it wasn't all fluffy, but the majority was, so I say it still counts. Illya is so fucking in love with Napoleon already, it's unreal, and he absolutely attempts to break into Napoleon's shop a few times in the dead of night, just to try and prove that he can. The one time he does manage it, Napoleon is sat inside waiting for him, because he might be retired but he'll be damned if he doesn't know when another thief is trying something. And yes, Markos is still lurking in the background of this story, and for all those people who have read the Arts AU and only know him as dead, I promise you're actually going to meet him eventually.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A fair few of you predicted in the comments that there is angst coming, and you might be right. It'll all be okay in the end, but Illya is definitely going to have it rough for the next couple chapters.

Napoleon has just flopped down on his sofa, discarding his coffee-stained shirt on the floor, when his phone starts buzzing. He pulls it out to see Gaby’s name flashing up on the screen.

“Gaby?” he asks as he answers. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Illya is going to be fine,” are the first words he hears, and his heart stutters and plummets straight through to the floor. “Before I say anything else, Solo, Illya is going to be absolutely fine.”

Napoleon sits up. “Gaby. What happened.”

There’s a rustling in the background. Someone murmurs something too low for him to hear. The sound of traffic is just audible. “I can’t explain a lot over the phone,” Gaby says reluctantly. “But Illya got hurt, on this assignment. He’s been treated, he doesn’t need to go to hospital or medical, but…he isn’t in great shape right now.”

“Why isn’t he in hospital?” Napoleon asks. He’s already on his feet before he even realises it, halfway to his bedroom. He grabs a fresh shirt and struggles into it, phone pressed between his ear and shoulder. “What happened, Gaby?”

“Trust me, he’ll be better off not being in a hospital room,” Gaby says firmly. “We’re taking him back to his flat. At this point, he just…he just badly needs to get some sleep.”

Napoleon picks out the undercurrent in her voice, the way it cracks around those final words, and his heart sinks even further. “Oh.”

Gaby breathes out, a rush of static over the line. “Yeah. Amongst other things. In whatever bouts of coherency he has right now, he’s been asking for you. I think. It’s hard to make out what he’s saying, and I’m not fluent in Russian.”

“You’re going to his flat?” Napoleon shoves his feet in the nearest shoes he can see and grabs a jacket. “I’ll meet you there.”

“Solo-”

“No, I’ll meet you there. If he’s asking for me, I’ll be there. Do you need me to stop and get anything?”

Gaby sighs. “Fine. No, we have everything we might need. We just left the airfield, so we’ll be about half an hour.”

“That’s fine, I’ll drive right over and wait for you outside,” Napoleon says, trying to shove his arms into his jacket and find his keys at the same time. “Tell Illya…well, if he’s coherent at any point then tell him I’ll be there soon, okay?” He hesitates. “You promise he’s going to be fine?”

“I promise,” Gaby says, her voice softening slightly. “He might look like a walking- well, staggering mess, but I promise he’s going to be fine. I’ll see you soon, okay?”

“Okay,” Napoleon says, and then the line is dead.

He allows himself a full minute to hyperventilate and let himself spin out about all the worst case scenarios, before he finally manages to get his jacket on and all but sprints out of the door. “Fuck,” he mutters as he skids down the stairs and into the garage. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

His hands are trembling as he tries to get his keys in the ignition. He drops them in the footwell three times before the car finally rumbles to life. “Okay,” he mutters to himself, gripping the wheel and staring at the bare wall in front of him. “Okay. Gaby says he’s going to be fine. If it was serious she would be taking him to hospital or to medical. He’s going to be fine.”

He may lightly break a couple of speed limits on the way to Illya’s apartment, but it’s fine. His hands stop shaking after a few minutes as he forces himself to breathe. He turns the radio on and makes himself listen to some random British radio host talk with some celebrity he vaguely recognises about desert islands and music until he can feel himself slowly getting back some semblance of control.

Of course, it all goes out the window when he pulls up to the street and parks haphazardly. He can’t see any sleek black cars lurking nearby, and there’s nothing from Gaby on his phone. “Okay,” he mutters to himself. “Okay, okay. It’s fine. He’s going to be fine. You have dealt with way worse things than this.”

Five minutes and four hundred and sixty three steps later, not that he was counting, a sleek black car pulls up at the curb and cuts the engine. The passenger door opens and Napoleon sees Gaby sitting there.

She looks exhausted. There are dark bags under her eyes, and it takes her a moment to fumble for her seat-belt and get out of the car. “Hi, Solo,” she says, her voice rasping slightly.

“What happened?”

The driver’s door open and another agent gets out. He’s dressed in what looks like tactical clothing, streaked and smeared with ash and soot. He doesn’t pay them any attention, going straight to the back door and pulling it open.

Gaby sighs. “I’ll fill you in once we get up into his flat,” she says wearily. “But he was…he was captured. He hasn’t slept for nearly three days, they dosed him with some sort of drug that hasn’t quite left his system yet and inhaled a whole lot of smoke when we maybe, sort of, burnt the place down in getting him out. The medics have checked him, have said he just needs to sleep it all off, and he’ll be calmer if he’s here than in a hospital bed.” She turns back towards the car. “Come on, let’s get him upstairs.”

The other agent is halfway in the back of the car. As Napoleon rounds the car, he can make out the man talking quietly. “It’s okay, it’s okay, you’re fine,” he’s saying as Napoleon gets closer. “Come on, mate, let’s get you somewhere safe. Come on, work with me a little here. You’re safe, you’re fine.”

He glances up as Napoleon approaches. “You must be the boyfriend?” he asks, his voice still low and quiet. “I’m Mark.”

“Solo,” Napoleon replies. “Is he- is he okay?”

Mark’s expression softens. “He’s going to be just fine.” He turns back towards the inside of the car. “Hey, Illya, look who’s here now. See, I said we would get him for you.”

Napoleon leans in. His breath catches in his throat. “Oh, Peril.”

Illya’s head lolls towards him. He’s streaked with ash, the smell of smoke making Napoleon’s eyes water in the back of the car. There’s dried blood flaking off across his face from a cut across his temple, and what Napoleon can see of his clothes under an obviously borrowed jacket that doesn’t fit is tattered and charred. His chest rises and falls quickly, his breath rasping in his throat. “Cowboy?” he rasps, before a cough spasms through him. He tries to double over, but the seatbelt holds him firmly in place.

Napoleon can only watch until the coughing peters out. “Yeah, it’s me,” he says. He reaches out and smooths a thumb across Illya’s cheek, cupping his jaw. “You’re okay, Peril. You’re okay.” Illya’s eyes are flickering around the car, focusing on nothing. His breathing quickens.

“Yeah, he’s hallucinating a little,” Mark says with a wince. “Nearly two and a half days of no sleep will do that to you, plus whatever drugs they gave him. They’ve been keeping him awake until now, but he’s about ready to crash once we get him somewhere he considers safe.” He grips Napoleon’s shoulder, perhaps seeing the shudder that Napoleon can’t help. “He’s going to be fine, I promise. Let’s just get him out of here.”

Between the two of them, Napoleon and Mark manage to get Illya out of the car and standing. Illya sways precariously, his breath hitching in his throat. “Ready?” Mark asks.

Napoleon grips Illya tight around his waist and takes some of his weight. “Let’s go.”

They must make an odd sight, part of Napoleon thinks, as they make their slow and awkward way up the stairs to Illya’s flat. Two men, with another hanging between them, barely keeping his feet underneath him, the smell of ash and smoke trailing behind them. Illya is muttering something under his breath in Russian, far too low for Napoleon to make it out. Gaby has gone ahead of them, two massive duffel bags slung over her shoulders. She’s waiting at the top of the stairs when Napoleon and Mark finally make it up, the door to Illya’s flat open.

“Nearly there, mate,” Mark says to Illya as they get him through the door. “Stay awake for a little bit longer.”

Illya mutters something unintelligible. He’s almost dead weight against Napoleon now, and when they finally get to Illya’s bedroom, he’s asleep almost as soon as they put him down on the bed. Mark straightens with a wince. “Right. I’m going to go help Gaby with the equipment. Can you get him sorted?”

“Yeah,” Napoleon hears himself saying. “I’ve got it.”

Mark claps him on the shoulder and then disappears back out of the bedroom. Napoleon takes a shaky breath, and stares down at his unconscious boyfriend. He’s shivering.

“Right,” Napoleon murmurs. He sits down on the edge of the bed and starts unlacing Illya’s boots.

It takes him about ten minutes to strip Illya of his charred outer clothes and get him under the covers. Gaby appears in the doorway as Napoleon is removing most of the pillows from the bed. “Smoke inhalation, you said?” Napoleon asks. He’s not sure how his voice is staying so calm. “Probably should be lying flat.”

Gaby sits down on the edge of the bed. “He’s going to be fine, Solo,” she says quietly. “He’s had worse.”

“Yeah, well that isn’t exactly reassuring,” Napoleon says. He takes a breath, trying to push back the panic and anxiety that has been welling in him ever since Gaby’s phone call. “Sorry. I do believe you.”

Gaby has a washcloth in her hands, dripping steadily onto her leg. She doesn’t seem to notice until Napoleon reaches over and takes it off her, beginning to wipe away some of the ash and soot coating Illya’s face. “They don’t really use much physical torture anymore,” she says abruptly. “The smart ones, at least. It doesn’t really work very well, especially on someone like Illya. So, they just…stopped him from sleeping. More effective than any form of beating. After a couple days, that alone is enough for hallucinations to start, but I think they got panicked, so they gave him a hallucinogenic towards the end as well. Lucky for us, it seems to be short acting.”

“Jesus, Gaby,” Napoleon murmurs. He pauses, his hand resting on the side of Illya’s neck where a reassuring pulse beats steadily beneath his fingers. “And the smoke inhalation?”

“It’s not too bad, he just sounds awful,” Gaby says. She winces. “So do I. We may have been a bit…liberal with the application of explosives, once we found him. The fire got a bit out of control. Medical gave us a couple oxygen tanks and a mask, in case he needs it, but he honestly does just need to sleep.”

Napoleon nods, not looking away from Illya’s face. He looks so small asleep, with the remnants of blood across his temple, the slight rasp in his chest with every breath. “I’ll stay here,” he hears himself saying. “Keep an eye on him. Just in case.” He smooths Illya’s hair back from his forehead, Illya barely stirring at the touch. “You said they drugged him? So he’s just coming down from a bad trip. I’ve seen that before.”

“When?” Gaby asks. The suspicion is obvious in her voice.

Napoleon rolls his eyes. “Not myself. Trying to do what I did whilst on a trip would have been a terrible idea. But I spent plenty of time around others looking for an escape, or a bit of fun.” He arches a brow at Gaby’s expression. “How else do you think European high society tries to stave off boredom?”

“Point taken.” Gaby gets to her feet with a groan. “I’m going to do drown myself in hot water.”

“Have fun,” Napoleon calls after her. He thinks he’s only being a little bit sarcastic.

The room falls quiet. Napoleon lets out a breath and pushes his hair back away from his forehead with hands that only tremble a little. “Christ, Peril,” he murmurs.

Illya, predictably, doesn’t hear him and doesn’t answer.

He’s not sure how long he sits there, watching the rise and fall of Illya’s chest, but he comes back into himself at a knock on the door. Mark is there in the doorway. “How’s it going?” he asks quietly.

Napoleon shrugs. “He’s asleep. Has Gaby finished drowning herself in the shower yet?”

Marks lets out a surprised bark of laughter. “Almost.” He steps further into the room, setting a duffel bag down by the side of the bed with a dull clink. “Two oxygen tanks and a mask, liberated from the medics on the plane, just in case he needs them.” He pulls one out and shows Napoleon how to turn the flow on and off. “Fair warning, Illya really hates oxygen masks, so if he has to put one on, be prepared to turn your back and find it on the floor a second later.”

Napoleon conjures up a smile, but it feels strange and uneasy on his face and he drops it quickly. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Mark settles down on the floor, leaning back against the wall. “How you holding up?”

The simple question takes Napoleon aback. “I- I’m fine,” he gets out. “Like you and Gaby said, he’s going to be fine.”

Mark hums. “Yeah, we can say that all we like and you won’t believe it until it comes true. It’s to reassure ourselves as much as it is to reassure you, to be honest.” He sighs, letting his head fall back against the wall with a soft _thunk_. “I’ll warn you now, it doesn’t get easier. Not really. But if this is a deal-breaker for you, if this is something you don’t want to go through every so often, which is a perfectly reasonable decision, then I’d like to request that you at least let Illya down easy. Not just because Gaby might murder you.” Mark looks straight at Napoleon, his gaze unflinching. “Illya has been the happiest I’ve ever seen him, these past few weeks. I’d hate for him to lose this.”

Napoleon looks over at Illya, at the softness in his face as he sleeps. “I already told him I’m all in. I’m not leaving over something like this.” He reaches out and smooths Illya’s hair back from his forehead, tracing the scar on his temple with his thumb. “I’ve done bedside vigils before.”

“Ah.” Mark nods. “Gaby did say you were ex-military. That you might take this in stride a bit better than I expected.”

Napoleon huffs a quiet laugh. “A long time ago now. Feels like an entirely different person.”

“Afghanistan or Iraq?”

“One of each, though I left halfway through my second tour.” Napoleon glances away, staring down at the carpet. “Not all of the bedside vigils worked out well. I just…got tired.”

“Yeah,” Mark says softly. He leans his head back against the wall. “I could not have coped with the military, even if the British is generally pretty decent. Not one for following orders without questioning. Illya has always been much better at that.” He huffs a laugh. “UNCLE wasn’t actually my first choice after university, but Waverly recruits from a much broader circle than MI6. I think it’s obvious from this broad Yorkshire accent that I probably didn’t go to Oxbridge.”

Napoleon huffs a laugh. “Well, at least it’s still British. I get so many suspicious looks as soon as I open my mouth, as if somehow I represent all the insanity that America is right now. I’ve barely been back since leaving the army. I can’t even vote there anymore.”

Mark hums. “Well, I could get into the whole class structure in this country and where Yorkshire ranks on it compared to, say, the home counties, but it’s been way too long a day for that and even if Illya is asleep, I’ve already subjected him to this rant way too many times.” He huffs a laugh. “You know, I feel like I should do some sort of shovel talk with you on behalf of Illya, but I can’t imagine giving a scarier one than Gaby probably gave you already.”

“Yeah,” Napoleon mutters. “She was very…detailed.”

“Sounds about right,” Mark says with a laugh. “She gets very protective of him sometimes.” His smile fades. “If you’d known him when he first arrived in London, straight after all the shit that went down in Italy and fresh from leaving Moscow, you would be too. I think he pissed off every single person in the building within two weeks, but once you saw past it, it was hard not to want to go to Moscow and help him burn Lubyanka down to the ground.”

Illya stirs, his breath rasping in his chest as he rolls over. Napoleon adjusts the duvet, pulling it up to cover his shoulders. “He’s told me a bit of it,” he says quietly. “If he ever wants to burn that place down, I’ll hand him the matches.”

Mark stares at him for a long moment. “He’s got a good one in you,” he says eventually.

Napoleon shrugs. “I’ve got the best I could want in him, so it works both ways.”

“Cute,” Mark says with a snort. “I feel like I should warn you, though, that half the agents have taken to buying coffee from you every morning to scope you out as Illya’s boyfriend.”

“You must have been out of the country when the bet was made,” Napoleon remarks. “I already know. Gaby is running a betting pool on how long it takes me to identify you lot.”

Mark snorts, shaking his head. “Of course she is.”

They sit there in silence for a few minutes, the room falling quiet. Eventually, Mark gets to his feet with a groan. “I’m going to throw some food together for us all. There should be something in the fridge.”

“Illya hasn’t been here for what, a week?” Napoleon asks. “I doubt much of it is any good.”

Mark snorts. “If it was up to Illya, there would be a couple of vodka bottles in the freezer and a whole lot of potatoes and cheese in the fridge. No, our boss has a- he calls them the welfare team. They stock our flats for when we come back from missions with food, so we don’t have to go out food shopping as soon as we get back from a mission or accidentally let all our food rot if we’re called away last minute. They do more important things as well, help communicate with families when agents are out on missions, organise childcare or pet-sitting, make sure bills are paid on time, that sort of thing. But we all think the food thing is really the most important.” He shrugs. “It’s pretty useful. They have a network of families as well. If you ever want to get in touch with other agents’ partners, talk to someone who is in the same boat as you are.”

Napoleon can’t help the wry smile. Somehow, he doubts that any of them will have quite the same perspective as he does. “Thanks,” he just says. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

Gaby eventually appears from the bathroom in a cloud of steam and Napoleon pulls himself away from Illya’s side long enough to eat a quick dinner of sausages and mash and gravy. The gravy is made from powder, but for once Napoleon doesn’t really care. Gaby looks like she’s ready to fall asleep over her plate, and Mark doesn’t look much better. “Are you sure you’re okay to drive?” Napoleon asks as he stacks plates in the sink and leaves them to soak.

“I’ll leave the car here and walk home, it’s not far,” Mark replies as he shrugs into his jacket. “Call if you need anything. I’d prefer not to be woken up at three in the morning, but if that happens then at least Illya will owe me a favour.”

“You owed Illya big time for that mess in Istanbul, so I think you’re all even,” Gaby says. “I’ll let you know how he is in the morning.”

Mark claps Napoleon on the shoulder. “See you soon,” he says, and then the door swings shut behind him.

“He’s nice,” Napoleon comments as he finishes soaking the dishes. “Seems…level-headed.”

“It’s okay, you can say it,” Gaby says with the beginnings of a smirk. “Illya and I can be a special brand of crazy sometimes. You better get used to it, if you’re sticking around. It’s not going to get any saner.”

“Like I said to Illya, I’m all in,” Napoleon says softly. He sees the way Gaby’s expression softens. “Are you staying?”

“Yeah, I’ll crash on the sofa,” Gaby replies as they head down the hall to Illya’s bedroom. “I should warn you, Illya can wake…violently, sometimes. Especially after something like this. It’s why medical let us go without much of a fuss to bring him back here. He’s less likely to accidentally break something back here. Mostly because he shattered his bedside lamp months ago and hasn’t bothered to replace it yet.”

“I’m sure I’ll cope,” Napoleon says wryly.

Illya is still asleep when they reach his bedroom. The pillow has slipped a little from beneath his head and his neck is at an awkward angle. Napoleon toes off his shoes and walks quietly across the carpet. Illya barely stirs as he slips a hand beneath Illya’s head and pulls him forwards slightly to adjust the pillow. “There you go, Peril,” he whispers. He presses a soft kiss to his temple. “You’re okay.”

“I’m going to pass out on the sofa,” Gaby whispers from the door. “Shout if you need anything. I’m a light sleeper, I’ll hear you.”

“Thanks, Gaby,” Napoleon says softly. Gaby gives him a smile and then eases the door shut behind her.

Napoleon tries to be quiet as he undresses down to his undershirt and boxers, but he’s fairly sure that he could smash a box of plates and Illya wouldn’t wake. He’s deep under.

Napoleon has pulled his fair share of twenty four or thirty six hour all-nighters, but he always had the thrill of the heist backing him up, the knowledge that he could stop and sleep if he really wanted to, if he wasn’t so desperately caught up in chasing that high. He’s never had it withheld as torture. He’s never been drugged against his will, forced to stay awake until he’s hallucinating.

He doesn’t have to have heard all the stories to know that Illya has a hell of a lot of nightmare fodder.

Illya stirs slightly as Napoleon slips under the covers. “It’s just me, Peril,” he whispers. “Just me.”

He cracks open the book he’d picked at random from Illya’s precarious stacks on the shelf. He’s never been much good at reading Cyrillic, but it’s never too late to practice.

0-o-0-o-0

He’s woken violently from sleep by the sound of someone trying their best to cough up a lung.

Napoleon bolts upright. Illya is doubled over, almost hanging off the edge of the bed as harsh coughs rip through him. “Jesus, Peril,” Napoleon gets out. He scrambles across the bed towards him.

Illya flinches violently at Napoleon’s sudden touch to his shoulder. He spins around, almost falling off the edge of the bed. “Cowboy?” he rasps, his eyes wide. “What-”

Napoleon holds his hands up. “It’s just me, Peril.” He winces as another bout of coughing racks through Illya, leaving him gasping for breath, and can’t help himself from reaching out. Illya sinks into his grip, letting Napoleon wrap an arm around his shoulders and hold him upright as he continues to cough.

“Fuck,” he gets out in between a bout, sagging into Napoleon’s grip.

Napoleon adjusts his grip to prop Illya up better, and presses a kiss to his temple. “I know. Try and take some deep breaths.”

“When did you-” Illya breaks off as a breath catches in his throat and he starts coughing again, deep hacking coughs that seem to rip through his chest. It doesn’t let up. Illya falls back into Napoleon, already exhausted.

“Gaby!”

It takes a few moments for Gaby to appear in the bedroom doorway, clothes rumpled and a wide-eyed look on her face. “What is- oh. Oh, darling.” She rushes in, kneeling down and rummaging through the duffel bag. “Hang on a moment.”

The bout of coughing peters off, but Illya is still leant heavily against Napoleon as he gasps for breath. Napoleon can hear the wheezing in his chest, the rasp in his throat. “Give it here,” Napoleon says, reaching for the mask. Gaby hands it over and he holds it to Illya’s face as she turns the oxygen on. “Can you go into the bathroom and turn the shower on, as hot as it will go, and then shut the door?”

Gaby stares at him. “The steam,” Napoleon says. He runs a hand down Illya’s back as his breath hitches and he starts coughing again. “It’s what my mum used to do for croup cough when I was a kid. It’ll help.”

Gaby nods and disappears. The shower starts running a few seconds later.

Illya seems half-asleep still, the mask fogging up with every cough. He reaches up and bats at the mask, knocking Napoleon’s hand away, and presses his face into Napoleon’s shoulder. Napoleon shifts, and his t-shirt sticks to his collarbone.

Napoleon pulls back and looks down. The entire shoulder of the shirt is dark red with blood.

“Holy mother of- _fuck_.” Napoleon grasps Illya’s face with both hands and tilts his head up, oxygen mask forgotten on the floor. For a horrible moment Napoleon thinks that he’s coughing up blood, and panic screeches through him with a deafening scream. “ _Illya_.”

Illya stares at Napoleon. His eyes track down to Napoleon’s shoulder, and Napoleon sees the exact moment that Illya, barely awake and fresh from being tortured in some godforsaken place, jumps immediately to the wrong conclusions.

“I’m fine,” Napoleon says frantically, grabbing Illya’s hands as he suddenly scrabbles at Napoleon’s shoulder. “I’m fine, Illya, I’m fine. It’s your blood.” Now that he’s managed to wrestle down the sheer flood of panic that overwhelmed him, he’s realised that the blood isn’t from Illya’s lungs but flooding instead from his nose. The front of his shirt is already dark red. Illya seems to realise at the same time as Napoleon, and goes from trying to find a non-existent wound on Napoleon’s shoulder to trying to stop the blood getting all over the sheets.

Napoleon pulls off his t-shirt and balls it up, pressing it to Illya’s face. It’s already ruined, there’s no point in trying to save it now. “Jesus, Peril, you coughed so hard you gave yourself a nosebleed. You have the _worst_ luck.”

He thinks Illya smiles at that, between trying to suppress coughs and not spray blood everywhere, but it’s hard to tell under the balled-up shirt and the copious amounts of blood. Napoleon tucks one arm around Illya’s waist, the other keeping the shirt pressed close to his face. “Come on, the steam will help.”

Illya stumbles to his feet and Napoleon half-drags, half-carries him out of the bedroom. Gaby is slipping out of the bathroom as they leave. “Fucking _Christ_ ,” she spits out. She rushes forwards, supporting Illya’s other side. “I leave you alone for five fucking minutes-”

“He’s given himself a nosebleed,” Napoleon says. “Not my fault, please don’t kill me for this.”

“Don’t kill Cowboy,” Illya gets out, his voice muffled. “Please.”

“Jesus, it’s impossible to say no to you when you’re recovering from being tortured and covered in blood,” Gaby mutters. Napoleon eyes her, and Gaby shrugs. “Happens more often than you think, honestly. We’re using up all the hot water, so you better get going with your wonder cure before it runs out.”

Napoleon rolls his eyes. “Help me get him in the bathroom so nobody slips and cracks their head open on the tiles, then.”

“Do I get a say in this?” Illya gets out.

“You’re currently still half-asleep, bleeding all over the place and trying not to start coughing again, so no.”

Between the two of them, they get Illya into the bathroom. The entire place is filled with steam, making Gaby wince as she slips slightly on the tiles and Napoleon wince as he feels his hair instantly start to frizz. Illya probably winces as well at something, but it’s still hard to tell under all the blood.

Napoleon sits down next to where Illya is propped up against the bathtub. “Let me have a look,” he says gently. “Try taking as deep breaths as you can without coughing again.”

“I have more medical knowledge than you do,” Illya rasps, but he lets Napoleon peel the bloodied shirt away.

Blood immediately splatters across the tiles. “Okay…right, let’s just keep pressure on that,” Napoleon says, gingerly pressing the shirt back to his face. He only lets go when he’s sure that Illya has a firm grip on it. “It’ll stop bleeding in a bit. Nosebleeds always look worse than they are.”

“Well, this is going to ruin my hair,” Gaby says as she sits down opposite Illya. She nudges Illya’s leg with her foot. “I hope you’re going to pay for my hairdressing appointment after all this.”

Illya glances up at Gaby. “Screw you,” he mutters. His breathing sounds a little easier, with the steam filling the room, and he slumps more heavily against Napoleon’s side. “My mouth tastes weird.”

“That’ll be all the blood,” Napoleon says. “Don’t swallow it or you’ll make yourself sick.”

He can feel Illya’s glare on the side of his face, even when it’s mostly obscured by the bloodied shirt. “Not my first go at this, Cowboy,” Illya mutters. The rasp in his throat with every breath seems to be slowly easing a little, the longer they sit here in the steam.

“Sorry ‘bout this,” Illya murmurs eventually. The blood seems to have slowed to just an occasional trickle, and Illya clumsily turns the t-shirt to a patch not soaked with blood to try and wipe this up. “You don’t- you don’t have to stay.”

“Oh no, this is always how I want to spend my nights,” Napoleon says. “Nothing better than sitting on the bathroom tiles at…three in the morning, shirtless, trying to stop my boyfriend from either coughing up a lung or bleeding out after being tortured and drugged for three days.”

“Napoleon,” Gaby says warningly.

“Ooh, I’m in for it now, you used my first name.” Napoleon arches a brow at her unimpressed expression. “This may come as some sort of a surprise to you, Gaby darling, but I am not used to… _this._ To your life. To getting phone calls that start with ‘don’t worry, he’s going to be okay’ and then go on to explain how my boyfriend has been _tortured_ and that no, don’t worry about it, he’ll be fine. He just needs to _sleep it off_. I’m sure this is all some sort of routine for you, but it isn’t for me. So shut it.”

“Sorry, Cowboy,” Illya mutters. He shifts, and Napoleon abruptly realises that he’s trying to pull away from him, in what little space there is in the cramped bathroom. He’s curling away into the corner movement by tiny movement, his bare feet smearing the blood spattered across the tiles.

Any anger at the situation just evaporates instantly. Napoleon moves and slips his arm around Illya’s waist in one smooth movement, too quick for Illya to do anything but instinctively flinch. Napoleon pulls him against his chest, his arms looping around Illya’s waist and holding him close. Illya resists for a moment, and then gives in all at once, slumping back against Napoleon with a sigh. “I’m much more comfortable than the bathtub,” Napoleon just says. He rests his cheek against the top of Illya’s head and listens to his breathing.

Gaby starts up a mostly one-sided conversation with Illya, who answers in hums and the occasional rasping comment that doesn’t really sound all together coherent. Napoleon breathes in steam and keeps his arms around Illya and holds on.

Eventually the hot water runs out. Napoleon reaches back and fumbles blindly for the tap, turning it off. The bathroom is abruptly silent with the sudden absence of the water pounding on the tiles. Illya is a warm weight slumped against him. “Is he asleep?” Napoleon whispers to Gaby.

“No,” Illya rasps. He stirs in Napoleon’s arms, one hand coming up to squeeze Napoleon’s forearm where it’s wrapped around his chest. “Cowboy?”

Napoleon hums. “You sound better. Tired of sitting on the bathroom floor?”

Illya nods. Between the two of them, Napoleon and Gaby get him somewhat cleaned of blood, back into the bedroom and under the covers of the bed. Napoleon slips into bed next to him, pulling the covers up over Illya’s shoulder. “Go back to sleep,” he says softly as Gaby pulls the door shut behind him. “You’ve got a hell of a sleep debt to catch back up on.”

Illya stares at him from across the pillow. “I’m sorry, Cowboy.”

Napoleon props himself up on one elbow, looking down at Illya. “Whatever for?” he asks quietly.

He’s known Illya for over a year now. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen him look this exhausted. Defeated. “I don’t know,” he mutters. He’s slipped into Russian at some point, but Napoleon doesn’t think he’s noticed. “Sorry.”

“Oh, Peril, it’s okay.” Napoleon reaches out and brushes a finger across Illya’s jaw. “What are you thinking?”

Illya doesn’t look away from the ceiling. “I shouldn’t…I’ve been trained for this. I was made to do this. You don’t have to help me. I shouldn’t…I can’t be _weak_.”

His voice cracks on the last word, and with it, Napoleon’s heart. “Oh, Peril,” he murmurs. Illya’s jaw is clenched, and he resolutely keeps staring at the ceiling, but Napoleon sees the tear that slips from his eye down his cheek. “Illya,” he breathes. He reaches out and gently tries to turn Illya’s face towards him. Illya stubbornly resists, and Napoleon props himself up further so he can see Illya’s face. “Illya. I know you’re really, _really_ tired right now, but you’ve got to listen to me.”

He waits until Illya’s gaze flickers over to him. “You are the strongest person I know,” Napoleon says. He sees the grimace flicker across Illya’s face, and taps a finger on his lips. “I mean it. You are. And you’ve been through a lot in the past few days. It’s okay to…to not be fully okay right now. And it’s okay, it’s good even, to ask for help.” He traces his thumb across Illya’s cheek, wiping away the shine of a tear as it tracks across his skin. “And I care about you, so I want to help. However I can.”

Illya swallows heavily. “Don’t know what I did to deserve you,” he mutters.

“You walked into my coffee shop and insulted my coffee, and then came back and apologised,” Napoleon says. He leans down and presses a soft kiss to Illya’s temple. “You’re kind, and brave, and you’ve walked through miles of unending hell and you’re still here and you’re still smiling, most days. I would say that’s a bloody miracle, but honestly it’s just the type of person you are.”

Tears are trickling down Illya’s cheeks now. He squeezes his eyes shut and swallows heavily. Napoleon shifts closer, stroking his hand through Illya’s hair. “You’re incredible, Peril, and I’m really lucky to have you. And it’s okay to not be okay right now. You’ll be okay later, and that’s what matters.” He huffs a laugh, his own eyes pricking. “But you do need to maybe stop crying before I start crying and we’re both a mess, and then you start coughing again and Gaby shouts at us.”

Illya finally looks over at him. There’s dried blood across his face that Napoleon missed when trying to wipe it away, his eyes are red from smoke and tears, and there’s still a slight rasp to his chest. Napoleon presses a soft kiss to his lips. “Let’s go to sleep, Peril,” he whispers.

Illya shifts, rolling onto his side a little. “Can I…”

“Of course,” Napoleon says immediately, though he has no idea what Illya is asking.

Illya shifts, and then rolls over more. One arm snakes hesitantly around Napoleon’s waist and pulls him closer. Napoleon goes with it, and wraps his own arm around Illya as he drapes himself across Napoleon’s chest, tucking his head into the crook of Napoleon’s neck. His breath slowly evens out across Napoleon’s skin as he falls asleep.

Napoleon pulls the covers up further around them, and smooths his hand down Illya’s back. “Night, Peril,” he murmurs and then he’s out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I'm so terrible. Napoleon isn't coping brilliantly, but remember, in this AU Napoleon has never been a spy, and has never had to deal with scenarios like this before. He's on a bit of a steep learning curve. Mark is great, he's the only calm agent in the entirety of UNCLE and without him the entire building would probably implode.
> 
> As always, kudos and comments are much loved.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm pretty sure that last chapter is the most angst this story is going to see, because I think I put you all through enough in the first story, and I couldn't help myself with the fluff content this time. I promise Markos' plot is going to happen soon, and takes up pretty much the entire back half of this story, I know a few people are waiting for that to be resolved. It's all going to come together eventually, but have a little bit more fluff first.

He wakes up slowly. There’s a heavy weight across his chest, he’s somehow shirtless, and he’s uncomfortably hot under the duvet. He shifts slightly, and the weight on him mutters something incomprehensible and tightens its grip.

“Oh,” Napoleon mutters. He brings his free hand up to rub at his eyes. “Of course.”

He cracks his eyes open. The first thing he sees is Illya, fast asleep and sprawled across his chest. His hair is sticking up in all directions, there’s dried blood still across his face that Napoleon is sure has ruined the sheets, and he’s drooled a little bit on Napoleon’s shoulder.

“Christ, you’re adorable,” he mutters. He trails his fingers across the back of Illya’s neck. Illya doesn’t even stir. “Oh, I’m so screwed, aren’t I? Utterly and completely screwed. And I can’t even be mad about it. Nope, can’t even be a little bit mad.” He breathes out, mindlessly tracing patterns across Illya’s skin as he watches him breathe.

There’s a quiet cough from the door. Napoleon starts as Gaby grins at him, phone in hand. “So cute,” she whispers. “Don’t worry, I’ll send you the pictures.”

Napoleon glares at her. “What time is it?”

“Half five. Your alarm went off on your phone.” Gaby tosses it at him, and Napoleon only just manages to catch it before it hits Illya.

“Don’t wake him,” he hisses at her.

“Please. He’ll be out for the entire day at least. Once he’s asleep, somewhere he knows is safe, he’s impossible to wake up.” Gaby stifles a yawn. “Do you want breakfast? I can’t cook anything but there are croissants in the bread box.”

“Oh, _shit_.”

“What, do you have some personal vendetta against croissants?”

Napoleon winces as he gently untangles himself from Illya. “The shop,” he explains as he slides reluctantly out of bed. “That’s what the alarm is for. I need to get in and at least make all the pastries and open up.” He hesitates, halfway through getting his shirt on. “He’ll just sleep for a while? I can get that all done in a couple hours and get back here.”

“He’ll be fine,” Gaby says. Her expression softens. “Go sort out the shop. I promise I’ll call if he wakes up or if anything happens.”

“I’ll be right back,” Napoleon promises. “I’ll bring lunch back as well. He should probably wake up to eat, right? Oh, and I can stop at the pharmacy if we need anything else. The nosebleed was probably from irritation from the smoke and all that coughing, I won’t need to get anything for it, will I?”

“Calm down,” Gaby says. She pushes him towards the bathroom. “Take a shower so you don’t scare anyone on the streets with the dried blood before you get dressed. There might be some hot water left. I will call you if anything changes, and Mark lives nearby, so he can get here in ten minutes if I need help.” She pats Napoleon on the shoulder, and it only feels a little insincere. “I’ve done this song and dance before. It really is going to be okay.”

Napoleon gets the shop ready to open in what feels like record time, barely stopping to wolf down a stale croissant from yesterday as he rotates baking pans and takes down the chairs from the tables. The baristas on shift today come in at around half seven, and soon after that the first customers, business types who are always early as they head to work, filter in.

His phone stays silent. Napoleon checks nearly every five minutes as he lets his hands get on making coffee and working in the kitchen without him, but there’s nothing from Gaby. He tries to distract himself with new coffee combinations for customers, but it only partially works.

He makes it to midday before he can’t take it anymore. “I’m heading off,” he tells the baristas behind the counter. “My boyfriend is…sick, and I’ve got to get back to him. All the lunch stuff is ready in the back, and I’ll come back in the evening to set things up for tomorrow. Rick is in at one for the lunch rush, so you shouldn’t be swamped.”

“We’ll be fine,” one of them says. “Go on, get going.”

Napoleon doesn’t break any speed limits getting back to Illya’s apartment, but it’s a near thing. He all but runs up the stairs and uses the key he’d swiped off Illya’s dresser to let himself in. “Gaby?”

Gaby is stretched out on the sofa, but looks up when Napoleon comes in. “He’s still asleep. Barely moved since you left. Did you bring food?”

Napoleon holds up the bag in his hand. “A lot of sandwiches, some croissants I made this morning, and I even sprung some brownies from the pan. Illya should probably eat, right? I got some soup for him as well.”

Gaby is eyeing the bag like she might tackle him for it, and Napoleon hands it over. “You are a saint,” she mutters as she pulls it open and all but sticks her head inside the bag. “Yeah, wake Illya up. He should get some food in him before he crashes again. Just be careful when you wake him, in case he lashes out.”

Illya is fast asleep when Napoleon pushes the bedroom door open, sprawled out across the entire bed. His arms are wrapped around Napoleon’s pillow, his breath rasping slightly in his throat.

Napoleon sits down on the edge of the bed. “Peril?” he asks. He reaches out and rubs his hand across Illya’s shoulder. “Illya. Time to wake up. Rise and shine. Up and at ‘em.”

Illya groans into the pillow. Napoleon shakes his shoulder a little. “Peril. Wake up.”

Illya comes awake all at once. He flips over, lashing out blindly. Napoleon easily dodges, getting in close inside Illya’s striking range and cupping his face with one hand. “It’s me, it’s just me,” he says. “You’re in your apartment, you’re fine.”

Illya heaves a breath, and his eyes clear. “Cowboy?” he rasps.

Napoleon smooths a thumb across his cheek. “Hey, Peril,” he says softly. “It’s about midday. I brought food from the shop, if you’re feeling up to eating something.”

Illya clears his throat, and pushes himself more upright on the bed. “Food sounds good,” he rasps. “Is Gaby-”

“Still here, and probably devouring all the brownies I brought back,” Napoleon says. “Mark went home a little bit after you got here, they’re both fine. Got another shovel talk from Mark as well, by the way. You’ve got some good friends.”

Illya snorts. “Addicted more to your coffee, I think. Half the agency is in your shop every morning when they are in the country.”

“I know, I know. There’s a bet, remember?” Napoleon shrugs. “They’re harmless, and it’s good revenue besides.” He presses a quick kiss to Illya’s temple. “And don’t worry about Mark’s shovel talk, because I can see it ticking away in that head of yours. I’ll tell you what I told him. I’m all in.”

Illya glances away. “I know this- it isn’t normal. There will be more times like this, probably. My work, what I do, is too important to ever give it up because of things like this.”

“You mean getting tortured?” Napoleon asks, arching a brow. He sits back on the edge of the bed next to Illya with a sigh. “I’ll admit, I don’t like seeing you hurt. Obviously, considering I care for you a great deal. And I would prefer it if things like this didn’t happen to you.” He reaches over and laces his fingers with Illya’s. “But I also know how important your job is to you, and what it means to you, that you’re able to do this. I wouldn’t ever ask you to compromise it.”

“I don’t think I could,” Illya says. “Compromise, that is. Not to the extent that this will never happen again.” He turns their hands over, studying the back of Napoleon’s hand. “I know you did not sign up for this, when we first…when we first became friends.”

“You didn’t sign up for me being a former art thief,” Napoleon points out. “And you still told me, literally the same day you got back, that you were willing to let me show you that what I used to do isn’t who I am now. You handed me a file full of evidence and told me that it was mine.” He squeezes Illya’s hand. “Illya. I don’t think either of us can consider this a normal relationship. And who cares? Why would we want to be anything but ourselves? However utterly insane that might seem to someone on the outside who doesn’t have the first clue about us.”

Illya huffs a laugh at that. “Very true.” He leans into Napoleon’s side, letting his head drop onto Napoleon’s shoulder. “I’m really glad you’re here, Cowboy.”

Napoleon presses a kiss to the top of Illya’s head. “In case it isn’t completely obvious, Peril, I’m crazy about you. I’m not going anywhere.” He wrinkles his nose. “Even if you do still stink of smoke. Maybe a shower? Just a suggestion.”

Illya hums. “Just don’t…don’t fuss, okay? I’ve done all this before. I know how to deal with it.”

“I’ll try my best,” Napoleon says. “And tell me if I’m being annoying. Not that you ever have a problem with doing that.”

Illya snorts. He gets to his feet with only a slight wince, and presses a quick kiss to Napoleon’s lips before slipping out of the room. Napoleon breathes out. He should really go and check whether Gaby has left any food for him and Illya, maybe strip the bloodstained sheets off Illya’s bed and throw them in the wash before they’re completely unsalvageable. He doesn’t. He just sits on the edge of the bed for a few moments longer and breathes.

0-o-0-o-0

Illya feels slightly more human after standing under scalding hot water for a while and putting on clothes that aren’t tactical clothing. There’s still a haze of exhaustion settled over him, making his movements feel sluggish, but it’s faded enough that he knows he can push it away for a little while.

Gaby is sat at the rickety kitchen table when he emerges, a tray of brownies in front of her. It’s already half-empty.

“Save some for the rest of us, chop shop girl,” Illya says as he slides into the seat opposite her. “You good?”

“Peachy,” Gaby says around a mouthful of brownie. “I gave Waverly a partial debrief over radio on the plane and I’ve got my laptop here to do preliminary reports, but he wants a full debrief tomorrow, so you have until tomorrow morning to catch up on sleep and get yourself into the office.” She pushes the brownie tray towards him. “You look less smoked. And like you’ve recovered a little bit of blood.”

“You make it sound like I took it from someone else,” Illya remarks as he breaks off a piece of brownie.

Gaby shrugs. “I don’t know what you and Solo get up to in your private time, and I’d rather not find out. You were very cute this morning, by the way.” She pulls her phone out of her pocket and pushes it across the table. Illya picks it up to see a photo pulled up on the screen. It’s a little grainy in the low light, but Illya can make out a picture of himself, curled up against Napoleon in bed, his head tucked into the crook of Napoleon’s neck. Napoleon is awake, his hand resting on Illya’s back. There’s an expression on his face as he looks down at Illya, unaware of Gaby and her phone, which makes Illya’s chest tighten unexpectedly.

“Stop being nosy,” he says, sliding the phone back to Gaby. “And send that to me.”

Gaby grins at him. “Of course, darling.” She breaks off another large piece of brownie and somehow fits most of it in her mouth in one go. “You know,” she says, her expression turning thoughtful as she chews, “I have maybe been a bit harsh on Solo. He managed pretty well last night for someone who isn’t used to this insanity.”

“He’s a little bit used to this insanity now,” Illya points out. “It is not like he was a normal civilian.”

Gaby waves a hand. “Yeah, yeah, he couldn’t be more perfect for you, I know. You are infatuated, darling. You really are.” Her expression softens slightly. “I’ll admit, I can’t help but be less pissed off at him over everything, after last night. He really does care a lot about you.”

“Nice to hear your vote of confidence in me, Gaby,” Napoleon says as he enters the kitchen, a bundle of what look like bloodied sheets in his arms that he shoves into the washing machine. “Please tell me that you haven’t just been eating brownies,” he adds as he hunts for laundry detergent, “or Peril is going to have a sugar crash alongside the sleep deprivation. I did bring soup and sandwiches for a reason.”

“But why would we eat them if there are brownies?” Gaby asks. “That just doesn’t make sense.”

Illya tries not to let his head fall to the table. “Stop it, chop shop girl,” he mutters. “Cowboy, laundry stuff is in the cupboard next to washing machine.”

“Oh yeah, that makes sense.” Napoleon sets the laundry off and then pulls out the rest of the food from the bag. “Soup is still hot, because I am a culinary genius, and the sandwiches are only a little squished, which I maintain just improves a sandwich.” He sets the food out on the table and Illya’s stomach rumbles at the smells.

He can feel exhaustion creeping back up on him as he finishes the soup and sandwiches. “Go back to sleep,” Gaby says, nudging his hand with her spoon. “Before you fall asleep in your food.”

“Are you staying?” Illya asks as he rubs at his face.

Gaby nods. “I’ve got a change of clothes here, so I’ll stay. Solo, I’m assuming you’ll stay as well?”

“Someone has to make sure you two eat actual food,” Napoleon remarks as Illya’s bowl and plate disappear from in front of him. Pillowing his head on the table seems like even more of an attractive idea. “I’ll have to go back and sort out the shop for the evening and tomorrow morning, but that should only take a few hours.” There’s a nudge to Illya’s shoulder. “Go to sleep, Peril. Gaby and I can entertain ourselves.”

“I don’t like the connotations of that,” Illya mutters, but he makes himself get up from the kitchen table and drags himself to his bedroom. There are new sheets on the bed, and the sound of the tv just reaches him as he falls onto them and pulls the covers up. He just about makes out the sound of crap daytime television before he slips under and then there’s nothing.

0-o-0-o-0

Napoleon flops down onto the sofa. “Fast asleep,” he says to Gaby. “I’ve got three hours before I need to be back at the shop to prep for tomorrow, so pick something good.”

“Cake Boss?” Gaby asks, flicking through channels. “Or…ooh, Gok Wan’s new show about brides buying wedding dresses up north.” The opening credits come up on the screen, and Gaby settles into the sofa with a slight wince. “I do like him, he really knows his stuff.”

Napoleon hums. He glances over at her, at the way she is holding herself as she sinks back into the cushions of Illya’s slightly ratty sofa. “You okay?”

“Huh?” Gaby tears her gaze away from the screen for a second to look over at him. “I’m fine.”

“Are you?” Napoleon asks softly.

Gaby lets out a surprised laugh. “Of course I am. I’m always fine.” She grabs one of the cushions and hugs it to her chest. “Come on, let’s watch women who have no idea what looks good on them try to pick out the most important dress in their lives.”

Napoleon doesn’t buy it. He’d been distracted by the walking disaster zone that was Illya from the moment he saw him in the back of the car, drugged and sleep-deprived and stinking of smoke, and rightly so, but Illya hadn’t been the only person there. Illya is fast asleep now, and Gaby is holding herself awkwardly as she watches a mother disagree with a bride over how revealing the dress is allowed to be.

“Fractured ribs?” he asks. Gaby stiffens. “You’re holding yourself a little awkwardly,” Napoleon says. “Most people wouldn’t notice, but then most people weren’t art thieves who taught themselves how to read a person in the smallest of details. You should ice them.”

“What would you know?” Gaby mutters.

Napoleon sighs, and heaves himself to his feet when Gaby makes no move to get up. “You know, I’ve had my fair share of injuries,” he says over his shoulder as he grabs an ice pack out of the freezer. “Nowhere near as extensive as an agent like yourself, of course, but I’ve had heists gone wrong, pulled off dangerous escapes that involve zipwires or jumping out of windows, that sort of thing. I’ve busted ribs before.”

He holds the ice pack out towards her. Gaby makes a face, but takes it from him. “I’m fine,” she says, hissing slightly as she presses it to her side. “Illya was more important.”

“Oh, I’ve known you and Illya long enough to be able to guess at the sort of self-sacrificing shit the two of you go for,” Napoleon says. He sits back down on the sofa, tucking one leg up underneath him. “I’m sure you don’t need a lecture from someone who doesn’t really have the first clue about what it is you do for your job. I don’t have any idea what it is you have to do.”

Gaby eyes him. “And yet somehow, this sounds just like the beginning of a lecture,” she says warily. She turns fully to face him, and Napoleon automatically catalogues the slight wince that crosses her face, the way her lips press together. “I bet Illya asked you not to fuss,” Gaby says, her voice steady. “I’ll ask- no, I’ll demand the same. We know what we’re doing, Solo. We know what we signed up for. So don’t you dare come in here and presume to know what it is we do and what we sacrifice for it. It’s all acceptable, to us.”

“I literally said I wasn’t going to give you any sort of lecture,” Napoleon says wryly. He echoes her position, turning to face her on the sofa. “Gaby. You think I’d be here if I disapproved of what you do? I’m not a civilian, not really. I once ran with the criminal underworld of Europe, which means I’ve spent a good chunk of time around agents as well as criminals. I do have some idea of the types of things you and Illya might have done as part of your job. Have I ever once done anything to make you think that I disapprove?”

Gaby shifts. “Not exactly.”

“Do you care if I don’t approve?” Napoleon presses.

“Illya would.” Gaby presses the ice pack firmly into her side and glares at him. “You hold a hell of a lot of power over him, Solo, and if you abuse it-”

“Yes, yes, you’ll pull out my entrails and make me eat them, pluck out my eyes, cut off all my fingers, we’ve been through the shovel talk already. Gaby.” Napoleon meets her gaze. “One, Illya and you hold a lot of power over me as well, if you want to look at it as a transactional scenario. But two, I do not, and will not, see it that way. You and Illya are my friends. Illya is my boyfriend. I would never purposefully abuse the knowledge I have about Illya, and if I ever do it accidentally, then you have my permission to let me know in whatever way you would like.”

Gaby looks a little more pleased by that. “You’re my friend, Gaby,” Napoleon says, his voice softening a little. “And I trust your judgement when it comes to your job. That’s it.”

Gaby hums. “I am fine, though,” she says.

“I’m sure you are,” Napoleon replies. He turns back to the tv. “And I know I’m just a small-time coffee shop owner, but if you’re ever not fine and there’s anything I can do, just let me know.”

Gaby is silent. A few minutes later, and she shifts so that she’s leaning against Napoleon’s arm. “Don’t say anything,” she says when Napoleon glances down at her.

Napoleon isn’t forcing the fond smile that curls his lips. “Wouldn’t dream of it,” he says. “Now, I think the cut of that dress is totally inappropriate for her body shape. She needs an A-line silhouette.”

“She needs to get rid of that pearl necklace first,” Gaby mutters. “It’s making her neck look shorter. Also, she is definitely having second thoughts about the wedding.”

They spend an hour dissecting the psychology of all the brides that come through in the episode. Eventually Gaby fetches her laptop and starts typing, putting her feet in Napoleon’s lap and leaning back against the arm of the sofa. Napoleon puts on another episode, and lets himself relax a little more.

He may not quite be a civilian, but that doesn’t mean he has the slightest idea what Illya and Gaby go through as part of their jobs. And he may not like the scars that litter Illya’s skin, the look in his or Gaby’s eyes sometimes when they seem to be miles away, but he knows how much what they do means to both of them, and he has his priorities.

If the person he was only a few years ago could see him now, he thinks with a quiet laugh to himself. He would be appalled. But then he supposes that that’s a good thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think at this point in writing the story I was very tired with miscommunication fucking over relationships, so everyone in this story has emotionally healthy conversations with each other about important things because fuck it, might as well write it even if it doesn't happen in real life. Napoleon and Gaby's evolving friendship came out of the blue when writing this, but I absolutely love every moment of it. Napoleon is as much a little slice of normalcy for Gaby as he is for Illya, which is why, though I debated it for a while, I decided against him joining UNCLE. He has a much more powerful impact on the story staying as a coffee shop owner. He doesn't have to be doing something big and grand and death-defying with his life to be doing good (and neither do you, for that matter).
> 
> As always, kudos and comments are much loved. For anyone who has enjoyed my The Old Guard fics, keep an eye out, because I'm going to be publishing a new one in the next couple of days. Hopefully tomorrow evening, but time is soup, so we'll see.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oof. It has been A Week. Or maybe longer? Time is soup, and we all know it. Congrats to all the Americans reading this who voted that fucker out, and to all the non-Americans who had been watching all this with the knowledge that we could do pretty much nothing in the moment to help. Take a breath, and enjoy the moment.
> 
> Anyway. Slightly shorter chapter today, because that's just the way it fell out, but given the amount of people who have commented how much you like Napoleon and Gaby's growing friendship throughout this story, I think you'll like it. There is plot coming next chapter, I promise!
> 
> Edit: something went screwy with ao3 notification process, so I have deleted and reuploaded this chapter to try and fix the error. Apologies if this means you got two emails, the chapters are identical!

Illya recovers quickly. He’s back to work the next morning, and within a few days even the rasp to his voice is gone. Napoleon gives up on trying to push tea with honey onto him instead of the usual coffee and does his best to ignore the small voice in his head that wonders when it’s going to happen again. He hasn’t made it all the way here by endlessly worrying over things that he has absolutely no control over.

He spends a few of the slower days at the shop training up two new hires who had answered the ad he’d sent over to the veteran’s shelter, and feels bad enough about the fairly high prices of most of his coffee that he drops the price of most of his basics on the menu. It’s not like he actually needs massive profit margins, with the amount of money he still has from his less than legal activities. The custom drinks he does for regulars, making flavour combinations up on the fly to try them out, he’ll still have to charge properly for, but he can take the hit on the black coffee.

He’s closing up one evening, a little over a week later, as Illya pushes open the door. “You look tired,” Napoleon says as he pushes a coffee across the counter. “Long day?”

“Always is,” Illya replies as he leans across the counter and presses a kiss to Napoleon’s lips in greetings. He glances up at the menus hanging up on the wall. “Did you change the prices?”

Napoleon shrugs. “Not the custom drinks, but yeah, I dropped the prices of the basics a little.” He picks up a cloth and spray bottle and begins wiping down the counter. “Hired two new people as well to help with the lunch rushes. They’re both veterans, so if you see anyone behind the counter who rings your alarm bells, that’s why.”

Illya nods. “Thanks for the warning. Is that the right word?” His brow scrunches as he frowns, obviously running through translations in his head, and Napoleon leans over the counter to kiss him just because he can.

“Eh, close enough,” he says. “You busy tonight?”

“Of course,” Illya says, and Napoleon is briefly disappointed before Illya grins at him. “Bake Off is on, and Bake Off is sacred and can’t be missed. How else should I spend my evening, not watching any of it because you talk through the entire thing?”

Napoleon laughs at that. “I’m just providing additional necessary commentary. Consider it your payment for all the free coffee and brownies you get from me.” He tosses a second cloth at Illya, and Illya starts wiping down the tables and setting the chairs up on top of them as Napoleon tidies behind the counter. Napoleon puts on some Dolly Parton over the speakers and finds himself humming along as he works, nodding his head to the rhythmic twang of the guitar, and when he looks up, Illya is moving in time to the beat as well as he wipes down the last few tables.

Napoleon can’t resist. He pulls his apron off and steps out behind the counter, coming up behind Illya. Illya starts a little when Napoleon slips a hand around his waist, then turns into the contact. “What are you doing, Cowboy?” he asks.

Napoleon takes his hands and starts tugging him from side to side with the beat of the song. “Isn’t it obvious?”

“I’m not dancing,” Illya mutters, his face flushed red, but he lets Napoleon take his hands and put them around his waist. Napoleon settles his own hands on Illya’s shoulders, stepping lightly from side to side.

“Seems like you are,” he says with a grin. “Dance with me, Peril. Nobody is here.” Illya rolls his eyes, but his hands don’t move from Napoleon’s waist and he begins to step in time with him. They sway in time to the music, the guitar and tambourine and Dolly Parton singing about her coat of many colours and what it means to be loved. And as Napoleon sings along to the song he’s known since his mother first sung along to it on the radio a lifetime ago, Illya’s hands steady on him, he thinks he’s so happy that he hardly knows what to do with it.

The mood lasts well into the next day, Illya at work and the shop as busy as usual. Napoleon is in the middle of taking a tray of muffins out of the oven and trying to lever them out of the muffin tray without damaging them or burning his fingers when a figure appears in the doorway of the kitchen.

“Someone asking for you, boss. Friend of yours.”

Napoleon sets the last of the muffins down. “Thanks, Freddie. These need to cool for fifteen minutes and then you can put them out on display. Blueberry and cinnamon, if anyone asks. Learning your way around okay?”

Freddie shrugs, the faded green tattoos across his arms rippling with the movement. Napoleon recognised a few of them the moment he first saw them, in type if not in detail, from his own days in the army. “The coffee machine is more complicated than an LMG, but it’s not so bad.”

Napoleon snorts as he wipes his hands off on a towel and heads for the front. “She’s a bit of a beast, but you get used to it. Just let me know if you want to work more in the back on crowded days.”

Freddie shrugs again. “Gotta get used to it, I suppose,” he just says. “She’s over there.”

Napoleon turns to see Gaby hovering by the counter. “Gaby, darling,” he says. “Your usual?”

Gaby shakes her head. Now that Napoleon is paying attention, he notices the way she’s almost vibrating on the spot, the dark bags under her eyes. “Everything okay?” he asks. “You look like you need something other than coffee.”

Gaby’s gaze darts around the room. “You have any engineering projects that need doing around here?”

The question comes so out of nowhere that it makes Napoleon pause, his brow furrowing. “Um, no?” he says hesitantly. “I mean, I’ve always got plans for this place, but nothing I’m working on right now. Why do you ask?”

Gaby’s jaw clenches. “Forget I asked.” She waves one hand. “I’ll just have a coffee.”

Napoleon eyes her. “You remember when I told you if you weren’t fine and I could do anything to help, I would?” Gaby nods slowly, and Napoleon fixes her with a look. “This is one of those times I was talking about, I think.”

Gaby blows out a breath. “They’ve kicked me out of all the engineering workshops at work. I’m meant to go home and just _sleep_ , like that’s something remotely easy to do. Just…have you got anything around here I could do? And an extra-large coffee to go with it.”

“I highly doubt that if you’ve been kicked out of work, then I should give you some more,” Napoleon remarks, glancing at her rumpled shirt, the small oil stain he can see on her cuff. “When was the last time you slept?”

Gaby shrugs. “Not important. Forget it, Solo. I’ll find something else to occupy myself.” She puts a fiver down on the counter. “Just a coffee please.”

“Everything okay at work?” Napoleon asks as he turns to the espresso machine. “Illya hasn’t said anything.”

“We’re not joined at the hip,” Gaby snaps. She sighs the next moment and leans against the counter, drumming her fingers on the granite. “I just…I need to do something that’s…unimportant.”

Napoleon arches a brow. “I know running a coffee shop is hardly the same as saving the world,” he remarks, “but I thought you had a little more respect for me than that.”

Gaby winces. “That’s not what I meant. I just…” She drops her head, looking like she’s a second away from it falling onto the counter. “Every time I go into the workshops or labs at UNCLE and start tinkering, it’s always in the back of my mind that it’s for a mission, or an agent. That what I do might decide whether someone lives or not. The worst thing that can happen here is I accidentally unplug your fridge and your milk sours.”

Napoleon softens. “You’ve got a lot on your plate.”

Gaby hums. “It’s not…it isn’t spoken about much at work, it doesn’t matter much, but technically I am the head field agent, and Illya is my…deputy. Second in command. Whatever you want to call it. I’ve been an agent longer than Illya has at UNCLE, and Waverly…recruited me with the long-term in mind, I suppose you could say.”

“The double-cross,” Napoleon surmises. “In Italy, when you and Illya met. You were already working for him.”

Gaby nods. “For a good few years at that point. It’s sort of an…open secret, I guess, that Waverly is training me to eventually take his place.” She slumps into a stool at the counter and lets her head fall onto her arms with a heavy thud. “It’s a lot. It’s just…a lot.”

Napoleon hums, and finishes steaming the milk. “I’m sure he wouldn’t have picked you if he didn’t think you could do this. You are a frighteningly competent woman, you know.”

Gaby snorts. “Thanks.” She raises her head from her arms as Napoleon finishes off the coffee and slides it across the counter towards her. “You sure you don’t have something to keep me busy with?”

Napoleon thinks for a moment, eyes casting around the shop. He glances back behind him. “Well, I have been thinking about rearranging the kitchen a bit. I haven’t really done anything with it since I bought this place, and I’m sure I’m not using the space efficiently, but I haven’t really had time to think about it. There’s also that spare back room I use for storage that I’m sure I could put to better use, if I can move some of the stuff in there somewhere else. There are blueprints of the store in the top left drawer of my desk, back in my office. Run wild. Just don’t actually unplug or move anything yet, I’ve got things in the oven.”

Gaby straightens up and takes her coffee in both hands. “Thanks, Solo,” she says, and she sounds genuinely relieved. “I’ll see what I can do.”

She slips behind the counter and disappears into the back, and Napoleon gets back to work. There’s the occasional clatter that makes Freddie stick his head into the back every five minutes or so just to check, but he doesn’t say anything and Napoleon is fairly sure that Gaby would at least ask before completely redoing his kitchen herself.

Another person steps up to the counter, and Freddie takes their order with only a slight pause at the till. Napoleon eyes the woman as she steps to the side and waits for him to make the coffee. Nice suit, but slightly rumpled, and not in the way it would be if she had just been sat at a desk all day. Her gaze flits around the café, cataloguing the people sat around at the tables. He sets the jug of milk down a little too hard, and there’s a slight tense to her shoulders as she turns towards him.

Napoleon just smiles at her as he dusts some chocolate and chili powder over the foam and pushes it across the counter. “Next time, you should try the scones with clotted cream,” he says to her, a perfectly nice smile on his face.

The woman’s face freezes. “Oh, for fuck’s sake!” she cries a second later, throwing her hands up into the air. “Goddammit, that’s twenty quid you’ve cost me, you motherfucker. What gave it away?”

Napoleon grins, ignoring the perplexed looks on the other customers’ faces. “That would be cheating, now, wouldn’t it?” He holds his hand out. “I’m Napoleon Solo, but you already know that.”

The woman shakes his hand. “Aja. Senior field agent. I really thought I was going to hold out longer against you, you know.” She eyes the display behind him. “Can I get a conciliatory brownie, at least?”

Napoleon picks one out and wraps it up. “Here you go,” he says as he hands it over. “It’ll go well with the mocha. But don’t tell the others I gave you that for free, or I’ll have everyone in here throwing the bet just to get free food.” Aja tucks it into a pocket and picks up her drink. “Better luck next time,” Napoleon says wryly.

“Yeah, yeah, fuck you,” Aja says. She waves at him and then heads out of the door. As she pulls the door open, another man walks through, in an immaculate grey pinstripe suit that Napoleon is immediately envious of. Aja steps out of his way, holding the door and nodding at him deferentially.

Freddie passes him another order, and Napoleon turns back to work. The man patiently joins the queue at the counter, hands in his pockets as he looks around the shop with a curious expression. It isn’t too long before he reaches the counter and Napoleon is setting a pot of Earl Grey to steep and plating up a couple of scones with clotted cream and strawberry jam.

“Here you go,” he says as he carries the tray over to the small table the man has settled at. He sets it down, and takes an educated guess. “Mr Waverly.”

Waverly looks up at him with a pleased expression that looks completely unlike Napoleon expected the director of an international intelligence agency to look like. “Thank you very much, Solo,” he says. “When you have a few moments of free time, please join me.”

It’s another ten minutes before there’s a lull and Napoleon takes his break. He takes his apron off before weaving in and out of the tables. “Ah,” Waverly says, setting down his teacup. “Please, take a seat.”

Napoleon sits down across from him, folding his hands together on the table. “Really excellent scones,” Waverly remarks. “Do you make them yourself?”

“I make the majority of the food here, other than the sandwiches,” Napoleon replies. He arches a brow. “Though, being the director of UNCLE, I suppose you could have found that out easily.”

Waverly waves a hand, and picks up a scone half smothered in clotted cream and with a generous dollop of jam on top. “Nicely spotted, though I suppose Aja did give it a way a little. And yes, I suppose I could have, but it would have rather been a waste of resources. You are, after all, just a coffee shop owner, are you not?”

Napoleon instinctively bristles at that, but he catches the look in Waverly’s eye before he opens his mouth and any anger immediately subsides. There’s a knowing look in Waverly’s gaze that sends a shiver of warning down his spine, and the earlier image of a harmless old man disappears immediately. “Just a coffee shop owner,” he says steadily. “That’s all there is to it.”

“Well, then that’s all I need to know,” Waverly replies. He takes a sip of his tea. “It is a lovely shop you have here. Are you planning on keeping this business on a long-term, or are you going to move on to something else eventually?”

Napoleon sits back in the seat. “If that’s your way of asking if I’m a flight risk, then no. I’m here for the long-term, so I guess I’m not going to run off and spill any of your secrets. Either intentionally or accidentally. I do have some idea of what might be at stake.”

“Yes, I imagine you do,” Waverly says. He studies Napoleon for a long moment. “Ex-military, was what Kuryakin told me when he informed me of your relationship.”

Napoleon has the distinct sense that he is being offered some sort of a lifeline. “Yes, I was,” he says. “But that was a long time ago. A different person, and one I don’t particularly intend to revisit anytime soon.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Waverly says, watching him intently. “Saying that Kuryakin is a valued asset to my agency diminishes greatly his importance, but it is nevertheless accurate. You understand that I do not consider it in a dismissive way, I hope, for considering you an important factor in his wellbeing.”

Napoleon arches a brow. “Do this for all the agents’ partners, do you?”

“That would hardly be appropriate.” Waverly finishes off a scone. “You and I both know that these are somewhat…unusual circumstances, that we find ourselves in. I thought it prudent to introduce myself.” He takes a sip of his tea, and evaluates Napoleon over the rim of his teacup. “To try to be as clear as possible without being…incriminating, your past is your past. If you say that it will stay there, then I believe you, and I will look no further. But understand that I have Kuryakin’s best interests to consider, including his effectiveness as an agent, and I will not see him placed in undue jeopardy.”

Napoleon arches a brow. “That sounds like a threat. Sir.”

“A warning, perhaps.” Waverly finishes his cup of tea and pours a new one, squeezing a slice of lemon over the top. “Just in case. But I think you understand your situation far better than I do.”

“Considering it is my situation and not yours, I agree.” Napoleon leans back in his chair and folds his arms. “I don’t appreciate threats in my own shop. Or anyone telling me what to do with my life.”

“Goodness, I’m not trying to tell you anything of how to live your life,” Waverly remarks, with what sounds like genuine surprise. “I hardly think that would go down well. No, I’m just letting you know that Kuryakin has people in his corner. And if he has chosen you, well…perhaps that means you may find he has people to back him up, if you ever in the unlikeliest of circumstances decide to go against him. But perhaps it just means that you have people in your proverbial corner, if you so need them.”

Napoleon considers those words carefully for a few moments. “I doubt I would need such assistance,” he says eventually. “After all, I am just a simple coffee shop owner.”

“Precisely,” Waverly says with a small smile. He sets his teacup down in the saucer. “Well, don’t let me steal you away from your customers. I’m sure I shall be seeing more of you in the future.”

Napoleon nods. He gets to his feet, and then pauses. “For what it’s worth?” he says quietly, looking down at Waverly still sat at the table. “Illya has told me some of what Moscow did to him. I’ve guessed at more. I’m glad that he has a handler who values him like he should be valued.” Napoleon leans forwards slightly, his smile sharpening. “And if that ever changes,” he says, his voice hard, “then I will fight to be at the front of the line to deal out retribution.”

He stands back up again and lets the easy-going façade drop back down firmly into place. “Of course, I’m sure Illya is more than capable of handling it himself. But then he does have people in his corner, including myself. Sir.”

Waverly just inclines his head. “I’m glad to see that we are on the same page. Enjoy the rest of your day, Solo. I shall enjoy the rest of this excellent pot of tea before heading back to work.”

Napoleon slips back behind the counter and puts his apron back on. “All good, boss?” Freddie mutters, eyeing Waverly as he hands change back to a customer. “He seems a little…well, you know.”

Napoleon nods as he takes one of the receipts and starts making the drink. “Everything’s fine. You get all sorts of characters through here. Best to just go with the flow and nod if anyone starts talking to you about the benefits of fad diets, it’s easier than telling them how wrong they are.”

Freddie makes a face at that, but turns back to the next customer and takes their order.

Napoleon keeps half an eye on Waverly as he works, but the man does nothing but sip at his tea and watch the people coming in and out of the shop. He’s just pushing another drink across the counter when there’s a clatter from the kitchen and Gaby emerges.

“Solo!” she says, pushing her hair back from her face. “How attached are you to your fridge?”

Napoleon almost takes a step back at the manic look in her eyes. “Somewhat?” he offers.

“I can work with somewhat,” Gaby says. She spins on her heel to head back into the kitchen, and then abruptly stutters to a stop. She stares at Waverly. “Sir. I- um, I can explain?”

Waverly sets his teacup down in the saucer and checks his watch. “You have been off duty for nearly fifteen hours, and only left the building an hour ago. Whatever you get up to in your own time is none of my concern, though I would ask that you get some sleep before I see you at work tomorrow.” He finishes his cup of tea and gets to his feet. “Enjoy the rest of your day, Teller. I’ll see you tomorrow. Thank you for the tea and the chat, Solo.”

They both watch as he weaves his way through the rest of the customers and out the door. “What did he want to talk to you about?” Gaby asks.

“I think he wanted to make sure I’m sticking around,” Napoleon muses. “Or threaten me that if I don’t, then some certain secrets might get spilled. I’m going to assume you didn’t tell him anything.”

“You don’t need to tell Waverly anything, he already knows what you’re about to say,” Gaby replies. “But he’s…he wouldn’t move against you unless you gave him a good reason to. Which I’m starting to believe isn’t going to be the case.”

“I’m so pleased at your faith in me,” Napoleon remarks wryly. “Now, why shouldn’t I be that attached to my fridge? It is somewhat a necessary component for this shop.”

Gaby tears her gaze away from the front door. “Have you got ten minutes? I’ve made some sketches.”

“Of course you have.” Napoleon sighs. He stares up at the ceiling for a moment, wondering when exactly this became his life and why he isn’t really worried about it. “Come on, then. Break it to me gently how much this is going to cost me.”

Gaby links her arm with his and tugs him into the back. “You’ll be fine, you big baby. Now, how attached are you to all those fancy pans and trays you have?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been waiting for ages for Napoleon and Waverly to meet, and to answer a few of your questions as to just how much Waverly knows about all of this. He's a lot of fun to write, I get to really pull out all the British-isms that I grew up with. Also, this line: 'Bake Off is on, and Bake Off is sacred and can’t be missed. How else should I spend my evening, not watching any of it because you talk through the entire thing?' is I think my favourite line in this entire story.
> 
> There is plot coming next chapter! I will try to be a bit quicker about getting the next chapter up, but again, time is soup. As always, kudos and comments are much loved.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally some plot! And some answers for things I've been teasing since the first story.

The bell above the door chimes. Napoleon pauses, halfway through wiping down the counters. “I’m a few minutes from closing,” he calls over his shoulder, “so if you want some coffee, it’ll have to be to go.”

He turns, dishcloth in hand, to see a man hovering just inside the doorway. Alarm bells start ringing in the back of his head.

Tall, dark hair pushed back away from his face. No bag, no coat, but a dark suit typical of the business types that sometimes come through his shop. The suit fits well but is wrinkled and dusty, what looks like a stain on one of the cuffs that’s been hastily wiped off but not removed. The very ends of what might be a burn scar is just visible above his collar as he walks up towards the counter. And the movement of the suit jacket under one arm that makes Napoleon tense all over and reach for a gun tucked into his belt before he remembers it’s been years since he ever carried like that.

He may be retired, but he’ll be damned if he can’t recognise a pistol in a shoulder holster under a jacket.

He puts a smile on his face and slips his phone from his pocket, opening it without looking away from the man now only a few feet from the counter. “What can I get you?”

The man glances behind him at the door. Napoleon can see the way his knuckles whiten as his fists clench, and he opens a text message to Illya without looking away from him.

“What’s your name?”

Napoleon arches a brow. Perfect English accent. Maybe too perfect. It’s hard to tell from just three words, but there’s no regional dialect, no underlying markers that come with an accent someone is born with. “What’s yours?”

The man looks at him, and Napoleon knows that a normal person, someone who hasn’t spent years running around Europe and the rest of the world chasing a high that was impossible to get, would be intimidated into silence. The alarm bells are getting louder.

“I asked you first,” he says.

“I asked you second,” Napoleon replies, matching the man’s stone look with a reckless grin. He sees the exact moment that the man thinks about the pistol in his shoulder holster.

Napoleon really can’t help himself sometimes. He sees a dangerous situation, and he pokes it with a stick. No wonder Illya is his boyfriend.

The man stares at him for a long, long moment. “Markos,” he says eventually. “My name is Markos.”

“Napoleon Solo,” Napoleon replies. “I own this place.”

Something drops from Markos’ shoulders. Something gives a little, somewhere, and it’s a different person who looks at Napoleon with a guarded look that isn’t quite good enough to hide something worried beneath. “Illya told me that I could find help here,” he says, his voice quiet. “That you can help me.”

Several things fall into place in Napoleon’s head. That quiet conversation Illya had with him one evening over dinner in the back, about a friend stuck back in Moscow. Someone who needed help, once they decided to take the first step and get out. Illya had been worried, more than Napoleon had ever seen him worried until the whole debacle that ended with Illya all but dragging him over the counter as he kissed him.

“Okay,” he says steadily. “What can I do to help?”

Markos’ eyes widen slightly. “I have no idea who you are,” Napoleon says, leaning on the counter, “and you have very little idea of who I am, depending on how much Illya has told you of me. But I trust him. So, what can I do to help?”

Markos nods to himself. “I haven’t contacted Illya directly. I can’t- is he in the country?”

“He isn’t out on a mission, so he’s here in London,” Napoleon says, purposefully not looking across the shop to the building across the street. “Do you want me to ask him to come here?”

Markos eyes him warily, leaning back slightly from the counter. Napoleon just steadily holds his gaze. He’ll come to whatever conclusions he comes to, and Illya can set him straight when he gets here.

Markos nods eventually. “Good, because I’ve already texted him,” Napoleon says. “He’ll be here in five.” The barest ghost of a smile flits over Markos’ face as he glances towards the door, as if Illya is going to appear through the door at any moment. “Anything I can do in the meantime to help?”

“A coffee?” Markos asks. He huffs a laugh, and suddenly Napoleon sees a different person in front of him. “It’s been a horrible few days.”

Napoleon hums. “I’ll make you a coffee, if you give me that pistol in your shoulder holster under your jacket.”

Markos goes still. Napoleon just holds out a hand. “I’ll empty the clip and make it safe, but this is non-negotiable. Kind of have a rule about guns in my coffee shop, I’m afraid.”

“Who the hell _are_ you?” Markos asks, but he unbuttons his jacket and slowly pulls the pistol out, weighing it in his hands.

“You can have it back, when Illya is here and vouches for you,” Napoleon says steadily. “But I have a rule about people I don’t know carrying guns in my coffee shop, and I’m going to need you to hand it over. If you want any coffee.”

Markos reluctantly presses the pistol into Napoleon’s hands. Napoleon quickly ejects the clip and puts it down on the shelf underneath the counter, tucking the empty pistol into the back of his trousers. “Thank you. What coffee do you like?”

He can feel Markos’ gaze on his back as he turns to the machine. “I looked into you,” Markos says quietly. “When Illya told me this was somewhere I could come, if I needed help and he wasn’t there. I researched this place. It’s completely unremarkable. And what little I could find on you was completely unremarkable as well. At the time, I didn’t think much of it.”

Napoleon arches a brow. “I’m hearing a _but_ in there. If you don’t tell me how you like your coffee, I am going to make something up and you’ll have no say in it.”

“Black is fine.” Markos shifts on his feet, glancing down at where Napoleon has put the pistol. “Who are you?”

“Me?” Napoleon shakes his head. “Just a coffee shop owner. You, on the other hand?” He studies Markos for a moment, judging the muscles evident under the well-cut suit, the way he stands. The slight roll in his accent that has slipped through in the past couple of minutes was the thing that really gave it away. “Spetsnaz or SVR? Or both, like Illya?”

Markos is quiet for a long few moments. “You definitely aren’t just a coffee shop owner,” he says quietly. “And…both. Like Illya. We were on the same spetsnaz team. I went to the SVR about a year after he did. And then…I assume you know who he works for now.”

“UNCLE,” Napoleon says. “Yes, I know. And I know the details behind him leaving, as well.”

There’s a flicker of something over Markos’ face at that, but he doesn’t say anything. Napoleon sets a coffee mug down in front of him. “This isn’t black coffee,” Markos says, pulling the mug towards him.

The bell above the door rings. “He refuses to make black coffee for me as well,” a familiar voice says from the doorway. Markos freezes where he stands. “Don’t take it personally.”

Illya shuts the door behind him and takes a few steps forwards, trailing to a stop halfway to the counter. He glances to Napoleon, who gives him a nod and tries to look reassuring. “Markos.”

Markos turns to him. “Illya.” He takes a breath, and Napoleon watches a whole host of things flicker across Illya’s face as Markos steps forwards. “It’s been a while.”

Illya nods. “Is Oleg-”

“He thinks I’m dead. Or captured.” Markos laughs, a ragged sound that makes Napoleon wince. “I slipped out of Algiers yesterday in the aftermath. I…I didn’t know where else to come. I want out, Illya. Please. I want-” His voice breaks. “I need your help.”

The relief that Napoleon sees course through Illya is palpable. “You have it,” he says quietly, the beginnings of a tired smile just curling the corners of his lips. “You have always had it. Julia?”

The name makes Markos shudder. Napoleon can’t see his face well, the way he’s angled towards Illya, but he can read the lines in his body, and he knows it’s nothing good. “In Moscow,” Markos says, his voice catching before he seems to take a breath and push it all back down. “That’s why I need your help.”

“We’ll get her out,” Illya says. He hesitates, and then rushes forwards and pulls Markos into a hug that is so tight it looks almost painful. “It is good to see you,” he says, his voice muffled in Markos’ shoulder. “I thought for a while…”

Markos says nothing. He just grips Illya back, his shoulders trembling for a few long moments before he clears his throat and pulls back. “You’ve changed,” he remarks. He laughs, gripping Illya’s arm. “It is very good to see you again, Illyusha.”

“Illyusha?” Napoleon says. “Oh, that’s excellent, Peril.”

Illya turns away from Markos enough to glare at him, missing Markos quietly mouth _Peril_ behind his back. “Only people who have been through Siberia with me are allowed to call me that, Cowboy,” he says. “Can you call Gaby? Tell her to bring Waverly down with her as well.”

“On it,” Napoleon says. “Illyusha.”

He’s glad that Illya has nothing in his hands right now, or he’s sure it would be heading for his head. He can feel Markos’ gaze on his back as he turns away and pulls out his phone, but Illya takes him over to the nearby couches, murmuring something in Russian too quiet for Napoleon to hear.

Gaby picks up on the third ring. “Hey, Illya should be down at yours any minute now. He left about five minutes ago.”

“Oh no, he’s down here,” Napoleon says. “Thing is, so is his friend Markos.”

There’s a quiet intake of breath over the line. “Oh,” Gaby says quietly. “Well. I wasn’t expecting that to happen anytime soon. Is he…”

“He’s come to us for help,” Napoleon says. “Well, to Illya. I’m incidental. Can you come down here, and bring Waverly with you as well? I think there’s a lot that needs to be worked out pretty quickly.”

“I’ll get him,” Gaby promises. “We’ll be down in ten.”

“See you soon, darling,” Napoleon says, and then hangs up.

Illya and Markos are sat together on one of the couches, talking quietly. Napoleon slips into an armchair opposite them. “They’ll be here in ten,” he says. “Is there anything that can be done in the meantime, Markos?”

Markos stares at him. “I’m sorry, but who are you? How do you know what Illya does? How can you just call up Gaby Teller and ask her to bring _the_ Alexander Waverly down here to your coffee shop, just like that? Do you know what the hell we are?”

“I know that Illya is a good person who has done a lot to try and do the right thing,” Napoleon says steadily. “I know that because he trusts you enough to tell you to come to me, if you can’t get to him, then you’re probably a pretty good person too. I know what Illya does, I know what he used to do in Moscow, so I can make a decent guess as what you’ve done. And you still did whatever you had to do to get here, and ask for help.” He shrugs. “That’s enough for me to go on for now.”

“What were you, CIA?” Markos asks. He laughs, and buries his head in his hands as he breathes harshly through clenched teeth. “Oh my god. What have I _done_?”

“The right thing,” Illya says immediately. He rubs a hand across Markos’ shoulders as Markos leans forwards and breathes for a few moments. “Cowboy isn’t CIA, by the way, and never has been. I trust him, Markos. As much as I would trust you.”

Markos laughs again, sounding even more panicked. “That’s not reassuring,” he gets out. “ _I_ don’t trust myself. Why the hell should I? I watched you leave and I did _nothing_. I just _stood there_. I listened to Oleg tear you apart every day in that office after you were gone and said nothing. I lied for him, I killed for him, and for what? So he could have more power? So more innocent people could end up dead? I knew that. I knew it the entire time. And I did _nothing_.” He buries his head in his hands, his shoulders shaking. “I did nothing. I can’t take that back.”

“Markos, no,” Illya says quickly. “No, you cannot think like that. Oleg had you under his thumb, and there was nothing you could do about it. Not when you were protecting someone else from him.”

“I could have come to you years ago,” Markos gets out, his voice strained. “I could have- how could I have stayed, Illya? I knew what Oleg was doing. We all fucking knew. And it was wrong, I knew what we were doing was wrong, and I still did _nothing_.”

“You’re here now,” Illya says. “And you didn’t do nothing. I’ve been keeping an eye on Moscow ever since I left. And I’ve seen the reports where you’ve done your best to mitigate casualties or work around Oleg wherever you could. You were doing your best in a place that did everything it could to beat that out of us. And I _know_ that. I know what it was like, Markos.”

He’s frowning, even as he rubs his hand across Markos’ shoulders. Napoleon wants to smooth the furrow out across his brow, kiss Illya’s worries away, but he won’t risk whatever all this is without Illya’s consent.

“It’s not enough,” Markos mutters. “It’s never enough.”

Illya looks out of his depth. Napoleon knows they haven’t even begun to talk about everything the both of them have done in the past, beyond the broad strokes. Napoleon hasn’t yet gone into all the detail of what he got up to as a thief, and Illya hasn’t managed to tell him everything he did in Moscow, but Napoleon knows enough to put together some of the pieces of the jigsaw.

He knows enough to know that it’s a fucking awful jigsaw. That some of the shit Illya went through there is still following him around over three years later. And he can guess that whatever Markos has gone through, whatever kept him in Moscow when Illya left even though it’s painfully obvious now that Markos would have left in a heartbeat, if he could, it was hell.

“If I may,” Napoleon says, leaning forwards. “As someone who has made some pretty horrible decisions in the past, there is a huge distinction between making those decisions because you wanted to, because you wanted power or money or because it was fun and you didn’t care about how it hurt other people, and making those decisions because you knew if you didn’t, someone else would get hurt. There’s a massive fucking difference. And whatever you’ve done or not done, you’re here now. From what I understand, there’s no turning back, and there’s someone important that we need to get out of Moscow. So, I think we table the discussions of morality and blame right now, wait for Waverly and Gaby to get here, and then make a plan.”

Markos heaves a breath. “Julia. Yes. They’ll be here soon?” He glances over at Illya. “Waverly will help?”

“He told me that what he did for me, he could do again,” Illya says steadily. “It can be done. I’ll make sure he does it for you.” He looks up at Napoleon. “Thank you, Cowboy.”

“I’m going to make you some tea,” Napoleon says, getting to his feet. “Whilst we wait for Gaby and Waverly. Peril, want anything?”

“No, I’m good,” Illya says distractedly as he checks his phone. “If you have any brownies left, though…”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Napoleon says. “One day I’m going to sell out of food before you get here and then you’ll really be in trouble.” He ducks behind the counter and pulls out a couple of mugs and plates. “Markos, do you want any food?”

Markos shakes his head. “Let me rephrase,” Napoleon says as he starts boiling water. “When was the last time you ate? Or slept, for that matter, but that’s going to have to wait a bit.” Markos is silent, and Napoleon grabs a sandwich from the counter. “I thought so. Here, eat this.”

Markos catches the sandwich tossed at him. By the time Napoleon has made two cups of tea and grabbed some brownies from the back, the sandwich has all but disappeared. Markos picks at the wrapper, ripping it up into smaller and smaller pieces. “I heard about UNCLE being compromised, by the way,” he says quietly to Illya. “You’re okay?”

Illya glances over at Napoleon. “Getting there,” he replies, briefly touching his side where Napoleon knows there is a still-red wound slowly fading into a scar. “Didn’t get too badly hurt.”

Napoleon snorts. “Not for someone’s lack of trying,” he says pointedly. “Get him to tell you the whole story when we’ve got time, Markos. It’s somewhat ridiculous.”

Markos huffs the barest of laughs. “I can believe that. This man has been pulling ridiculous stunts ever since he rigged a makeshift explosive device to bring down a mining tunnel with us still inside it. I had to put up with it for years. Spent two years trying to get the sniper spot on the team just so I didn’t have to be near him when he inevitably found plastic explosives.”

“Says the person who I had to stop from picking up an actual sword in Morocco,” Illya says. “When we were being shot at. With machine guns.”

“I wasn’t going to _use_ it,” Markos says, in the familiar refrain of what must be a well-worn argument. He opens his mouth to say more, and then trails off. “That was what made me come to you. I heard that UNCLE was compromised, and you had disappeared. And I thought…” He breathes in steadily, stretching out his hands flat against his thighs. “I thought that you were dead. And I…if you were dead, then Oleg _owned_ me. There was no way I could get away, get Julia away, on my own. And I would be stuck, in service to him, until I died. Which, given the way things have been going for the past year or so, would have been pretty damn soon.”

Illya’s grip tightens on Markos’ shoulder, fingers visibly digging into his skin. Markos winces slightly, but doesn’t say anything. “Peril,” Napoleon says softly.

Illya starts. “Right,” he mutters, letting go of Markos. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Markos says distractedly. “I just…are you sure Waverly can help? And will help?”

“Ask him yourself,” Napoleon says, nodding at the door just as Gaby steps through, Waverly close behind her.

Illya gets to his feet immediately, Markos a few seconds later. “Sir,” he says. He swallows, glancing back towards Markos. “Please, hear us out.”

“Gaby has explained as much as she knows,” Waverly says, removing his glasses to wipe at them with a handkerchief. “Markos, is it?”

“Markos Chernyak, SVR agent and former lieutenant in the spetsnaz,” Markos says, pulling himself up to attention. “Sir. Consider this…my formal defection.”

Waverly blinks. “Well, I have to say that I did not expect you to come here in person,” he remarks. “Everyone sit down, please.”

Gaby presses a quick kiss to Illya’s cheek and then claims one of the other armchairs, next to Waverly. Napoleon perches on the edge of the couch next to Illya, quickly pressing a reassuring hand to the back of his neck. Illya’s gaze flickers up, a small smile tugging at his lips.

“Now,” Waverly says. “Lieutenant Chernyak. I take it you have been Illya’s contact in matters such as Bolivia?” At Markos’ nod, he just hums. “Then your information has already been of a benefit to my people, and to maintaining some semblance of order in the world. Oleg is your handler, yes?”

“Yes, sir,” Markos says quietly.

Waverly just hums again, sounding as mildly disproving as it’s possible for an elderly British man to be. “Well, he won’t like it, but frankly I don’t care much for his opinion. Kuryakin has proven himself to be a remarkable agent for UNCLE. If you are cut from the same cloth, as it were, then I believe that the benefits of having you onboard far outweigh the displeasure of having to deal with Oleg’s ire. Besides,” he adds, the barest of smirks curling the corner of his lip, “I do believe I still owe him one for Ukraine.”

Markos sits up straight. “Sir, I-”

“Once it’s decided, things will have to move quickly,” Gaby says, stealing a brownie from the plate on the coffee table. “But it’s good that you’re already here in London. It’s much easier to protect you here. How did you get away?”

“I was on mission in Algiers, and was able to fake being captured.” Markos shifts uneasily. “I only have two more days, at the most, before someone realises that I’ve disappeared.”

“Well, then.” Waverly straightens his lapels. “We can iron out all the details and go through all the necessary paperwork at a later date, but Chernyak, I accept your defection. This is a formal offer of employment as an agent of UNCLE, under my supervision and command. I will ensure that any contract with the SVR and Moscow will be fully terminated, and that I will do everything in my power to prevent any repercussions from reaching you. You will not be treated as I suspect you were in Moscow. That, I can promise you. Do you accept my offer?”

Markos glances over at Illya, and then up at Napoleon. “Yes,” he says. “But there is something that-” He glances over at Illya again, and Illya nods reassuringly. “If I am to accept your offer, then I need…I need you to do something for me.”

“Within reason,” Waverly says steadily. “What is it?”

Words to seem to fail Markos for a moment. “I have…there is someone who needs extracting from Moscow. That’s why it’s taken so long for me…for me to defect. Oleg knows Julia exists, and he damn well knows that’s how to control me. I can’t go and get her. The moment I step foot in Moscow Oleg won’t let me go. And Illya can’t go, either. Oleg will know something is up if he goes back.”

“He may well suspect something if any known UNCLE agent goes into Moscow,” Waverly muses. “Teller?”

“I have contacts in Moscow, but extracting a person is always difficult,” Gaby says around a mouthful of brownie. “We could go to MI6 or Interpol, both I and Illya have favours we can call in there and I know the double-ohs are always spoiling for some fun, but that’s also risky.”

Illya nods. “Cowboy?” he asks, looking up at Napoleon. “What is the best way you would extract a person?”

“Get in touch with her through a burner phone and get Julia to fly her own way out,” Napoleon says. “That’s much easier than sending someone in for her. I’m sure that the visa issues on this end can be handled once she lands.”

Illya shakes his head. “She can’t go on her own. Someone needs to go and get her.”

“That makes things a lot harder,” Napoleon warns. “Why can’t she-”

“Because she’s ten,” Markos says sharply. He looks back down, clasping his hands together. Illya squeezes his shoulder. “She’s…Julia is my daughter.”

“Oh, shit,” Gaby says, after a few moments of stunned silence from everyone except Markos and Illya. “I can see why you didn’t want to go against Oleg.”

“She-” Markos heaves a breath. “Her mother died when she was young. She lives with her great-grandmother now. Oleg knows. Oleg knows she’s mine and that I would do anything for her. I-I can’t _do this_ without her.” He drops his head into his hands. “I…I just can’t. She is my _daughter_ , she is everything to me, I can’t do any of this without her.”

“Markos,” Illya says lowly. He wraps an arm around Markos’ shoulders, pulling him close. “Markos, we’ll get her, okay? Jules is going to be fine.” He looks over at Gaby and Waverly. “We have to move quickly. The moment Oleg realises what’s happened, he might use her as leverage. But I can’t go and get her. I don’t know if any of us can go and get her. Moscow has extensive knowledge of agents of other agencies.”

“Oleg is even more paranoid than you would remember,” Markos mutters. “I can maybe call in some favours, but most of my friends are in other countries and I don’t know if that’s enough, I don’t _know-_ ” He breaks off again, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes with a shudder. Illya winces, tugging Markos closer again.

“We need to do something quickly,” he says. “Get in and out before Oleg even knows Markos has defected. But we need to keep it as quiet as possible. Gaby, have you got anyone in Berlin who could help us?”

They start talking strategy. Napoleon watches them as Gaby pulls out a notepad and starts writing down names and routes as they’re listed off, as Illya grips Markos’ shoulder as he explains where Julia goes to school, where she lives, whether his grandmother will listen to him if he calls. Illya is worrying at his bottom lip, fingers drumming on the armchair next to Napoleon. Markos is obviously hanging on by the skin of his teeth. If he wasn’t so worried over his daughter, Napoleon half expects he would have passed out from exhaustion by now.

They’re running into dead ends, no viable options that can be pulled off in the time that they have. Napoleon reaches out and gently slips his hand under Illya’s where his fingers are digging into the armchair. “I’ll go.”

Illya starts, turning to him. “Cowboy?”

“I’ll go,” Napoleon repeats. “I’m a civilian, they won’t have any reason to flag me coming into the country. I can be in and out in hours. And I can cope if something goes wrong. I’m probably just as good at improvising in sticky situations as you are, Peril.” He turns to Markos. “I know that you don’t know me, and that this is asking a hell of a lot for you to take on blind faith. But I think I am the best choice for getting Julia out without raising any suspicion from your handler.”

Markos stares at him for a long, long moment. “Who the _fuck_ are you,” he says eventually, his voice ragged. “Because you’re not a civilian. You can’t be. And I can’t…I can’t let you do this if I don’t know.”

Napoleon glances at Illya, and then over at Waverly. “Oh, goodness, would you look at that, someone is calling,” Waverly says, not even bothering to get out a phone. “I’ll step outside for five minutes.”

“Plausible deniability,” Napoleon says to Markos’ expression. “These two already know. Even if they were incredibly slow on the uptake.”

“Not the time, Cowboy,” Illya mutters.

“Fine, fine.” Napoleon shifts on the armrest he’s perched on, turning to Markos. “You couldn’t find much at all when you looked me up. I made sure of that. And no, I wasn’t CIA or FBI or any other acronym you care to name. I’m retired now, but up until a couple of years ago…” Illya squeezes his hand where their fingers are laced, and Napoleon takes a breath. “You know me by another name. For a long time, I went by the name Prado.”

He sees the moment it clicks together in Markos’ mind. “ _The_ Prado? The art thief? The one they never managed to catch?” His mouth falls open. “You…you were unstoppable. You stole from the _Kremlin_.” He lets out a shaky laugh. “Interpol was putting together a team to try and find you, from across four different agencies, when you disappeared. They were _so_ pissed.”

“Yeah, I heard about that,” Napoleon says with a grin. “Good thing I decided to retire when I did.”

“And you, what, decided to open a coffee shop in London?” Markos asks. “Right opposite the headquarters for UNCLE?”

“I didn’t know that at the time. But yes, a coffee shop. Keeps me busy, and keeps me from going anywhere near what I used to do.” Napoleon keeps a smile on his face, even as those first few months of disappearing and lying low, drinking to try and quell the itch in his fingers that felt like it was driving him insane, surface again. He’ll never really be rid of it, but then that’s how an addiction works. “Illya came in here one day, was rude about my profession, and then it all snowballed from there.”

“And now?” Markos asks, eyeing their entwined fingers. “How do you fit into all of this now?”

Napoleon squeezes Illya’s hand as he shifts, turning to Markos. “He’s my boyfriend,” Illya says quietly. His entire body tenses, as if bracing himself. Napoleon places his hand on the back of Illya’s neck, thumb smoothing down across the line of his throat in some semblance of comfort.

Markos stares at them, and then promptly bursts out laughing. “Out of everyone,” he gets out between laughs, “out of all the men you might find, and you go and find not only an international art thief, but an _American_? Oh, _Illya_. You let a thief steal your heart? I couldn’t think of a better fuck you to Oleg.” He heaves a breath, wiping at his eyes with a grin. “After everything Moscow did to you, and you’ve found him?” He reaches out and grips Illya’s arm. “I’m so fucking proud of you.”

Illya shudders under Napoleon’s touch. “Thank you, Markos,” he says quietly.

“This is lovely,” Gaby says, leaning forwards to steal the last brownie. “But I think we should put a plan in place. Markos, I think Solo really is the best person to go and get your daughter and bring her here. He certainly has plenty of experience smuggling things over borders.”

“Yes, let’s go into my criminal background right now, Gaby,” Napoleon says. “That’s not wasting any time whatsoever.” He turns to Markos. “You know Prado’s reputation. I was a thief, but I never went in for bloodshed or after people who didn’t deserve it. I am honestly retired, I am honestly just running a coffee shop now. But I know I can go and get your daughter out of Moscow.”

He can see Markos is struggling more with each moment to hold everything together. “If you are willing to trust me with this, I will go and get Julia. And I promise I will get her back to you.”

“We are spies,” Markos says with a ragged laugh. “We shouldn’t make promises.”

Illya snorts at that, but Napoleon shakes his head. “Well, I’m not a spy and never have been, so that doesn’t apply to me. I was a fucking fantastic thief, Markos. I still can be, if you need me to. And I’ve been in far more dangerous places than Moscow.”

Markos looks at Illya. “Do you trust him?”

“With my life,” Illya replies steadily. “I know she’s your daughter, Markos. I know you love her more than anything. But if she were mine-”

“You know you’re her uncle,” Markos says quickly. “You know blood means nothing to us.”

“Then I trust Napoleon to get her, and to keep her safe.” Illya grips Markos’ shoulder. “You know I wouldn’t let anything happen to her.”

“I know, I know,” Markos murmurs. He sighs. “Okay. Okay. If this is the best option, then we’ll do it.” He looks around at the rest of them around the coffee table. “So, how do we pull this off?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You finally know why Markos didn't follow Illya out the moment that Illya left for UNCLE. I've had these scenes written for _ages_ , so I'm very glad y'all finally reached it! Initially this whole plotline was going to be in the first story, but I decided there wasn't enough space, and so this entire sequel spawned. I have loved writing Markos finally be alive for once- I became surprisingly attached to his character when writing the [Ceci n'est pas un espion series](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1117995) despite the fact that (spoilers) he was dead the entire time. So I decided to make him alive this time, and keep him that way. Also, I promise that this has a happy ending, and I am never going to do anything to harm Julia at any point in this story. She and Markos are going to be just fine.
> 
> As always, kudos and comments are much loved.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A quick note I forgot to mention last chapter- Julia's name is pronounced Yulia, as she is Russian. It should probably be spelled like that, but by the time I realised this I had already written most of the scenes with her in them and it looked too weird changing it. Apologies for the inaccuracy.
> 
> More plot! I actually surprised myself with how plot-heavy the latter half of this story became, but I had spent so long wanting to write Markos and reveal Julia to everyone and I had a lot I wanted to get down. I'm so glad that people remembered Markos and are still invested in his story, I really loved writing him.

Napoleon takes everyone minus Waverly, who promises to smooth things over with the British government, back to his apartment. “You should probably stay here, keep your head low,” he tells Markos as he shuts the door behind them. “Gaby, darling, can you get me a car in Moscow? I can steal one out of the long-term car park without anyone noticing if I have to, but I’d prefer not to.”

“I’ll see it done,” Gaby says, pulling her phone out. “The earliest flight out from Gatwick to Moscow is in two hours, but it’ll put you in Moscow at around three in the morning, so you might want to wait for the flight at two am instead. You can get to Markos’ stepmother’s house by seven if you go quickly through customs.”

“Oh, I’m rather good at getting through customs quickly,” Napoleon says with a smile. “That flight, then. Markos, you’re going to have to tell me everything that might be useful for me to know, and come up with a way to convince Julia and your grandmother that I’m there to help. This will work best if Julia comes with me with no fuss.”

Markos, slumped on his sofa and looking utterly exhausted, just nods. “I’ll…if I record something on your phone for you to show her, she will probably listen to that. We have code phrases for when I need to let her know something is really serious and she needs to do what I say, or to reassure her I’m not being forced to do something. She’ll understand.”

Napoleon hands over his phone, and tries not to think about the implications of those codes already existing. “I’m going to pack a bag.”

Illya follows Napoleon into his bedroom, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. “You won’t get a gun through Sheremetyevo. Maybe some lockpicks, if you’re lucky.”

“If I’m lucky, which I often am, then I won’t need either of those things,” Napoleon says. “I can get lockpicks in Moscow if I need to, or improvise if I really need to.” He pulls a messenger bag out of his wardrobe and sets it down on the bed, watching Illya out of the corner of his eye as he starts searching his drawers for whatever he might need. “How are you doing?”

“Me?” Illya asks. “I’m fine, Cowboy.”

He sounds anything but. Napoleon drops the jacket in his hands onto his bed and steps over to him, gently pulling his arms out from where Illya has crossed them to take his hands. “Peril?”

Illya gives in slowly, and then all at once, leaning forwards until his forehead comes to rest against Napoleon’s shoulder. Napoleon’s hand comes up, resting on the back of Illya’s neck. “I know, Peril,” he says quietly. “It’s all fucked up. But I’ll be back before you know it, Julia with me, and Markos will finally be safe.”

“I want to go with you,” Illya mutters. He pulls back, jaw clenching. “I want to go and get my niece. I want to go back in time and grab Markos as I left Moscow for the last time and take him with me instead of just leaving him behind, abandoning him to Oleg. I want to burn Lubyanka to the fucking _ground_.” He breaks off, breathing through clenched teeth. “But the moment I step foot in Moscow, Oleg will know. And we won’t have any chance of getting Julia out. But I can’t…Markos is my friend, and what have I done for him?”

“Peril, no,” Napoleon says, cutting Illya off before he can really get going. “You should talk to Markos about this, but I’m betting that knowing you were out here kept him sane until he could get himself out. You know that if you’d taken him away, without it being his decision, he might just have turned around and gone straight back. You know that. And I’m sorry that you can’t go and get Julia for him. Hell, I’m sorry for all the shit that you’ve gone through at the hands of Oleg. But you know that I’m the best chance we’ve got for them.”

“I know,” Illya mutters. “And I do trust you, Cowboy, I do. I just…there are a lot of things I wish I could go back and do differently.”

Napoleon cups his cheek, pressing a quick kiss to Illya’s lips. “Don’t we all. It’s going to be fine, Peril. I’ll be in and out of Moscow before Oleg can even get his head out of his own arse to notice me.”

Illya kisses him back, pulling him close at the back of his neck. “Don’t know what I did to deserve you, Cowboy,” he mutters against his lips.

“Many things,” Napoleon replies, letting Illya pull him in, running his hands down Illya’s side and delighting in the quiver of muscle beneath his fingertips. “Many wonderful things. Or do I need to get the post-it notes out again?”

Illya just kisses him again, pulling Napoleon forwards until Napoleon is bracketing him against the wall. “Promise me,” he says, hands hot against Napoleon’s neck. “Promise me that you will come back.”

“I promise,” Napoleon murmurs against his lips. “I’ll be back before you know it.” He pulls back after a last press of his lips against Illya. “Now, I’m going to need a map of Moscow and your and Markos’ brains. It’s been a while since I was in Moscow, and I need to know as much about how the city lives as I can. And as much about Julia and Markos’ grandmother as I can.”

Gaby is sat at the kitchen table, laptop open and phone pressed against her ear. “Sir,” she says, glancing up at them as they reappear. “Yes, of course. Yes, I’ll get in touch with the British embassy in Moscow as soon as they touch down in London. No, I know. I’ll stay with them until this is all sorted. Give me a second, sir.” She looks over at Napoleon and Illya hovering in the doorway, pulling her phone away from her ear. “You might want to check in on Markos, Illya. I think he’s about to crash.”

They find Markos sitting in the same spot that they’d left him. His shoulders are shaking.

There’s a photo in his hands. It’s a little crumpled, torn around the edges and creased where it’s been folded so many times. A young girl stares up from the page, her hair a riot of curls and a gap-toothed grin from ear to ear. “That’s Julia?” Napoleon asks quietly.

Markos starts, wiping at his eyes. “Yeah,” he gets out. “Her seventh birthday. She ate too much candyfloss and threw up when I got her home, and then begged me for a month to go back to the fair.” His breath hitches. “All I wanted to do was keep her safe. She never asked for any of this, and I’ve put her in so much danger just by being her _dad_. And now I might be-” He breaks off, pressing his hand to his mouth. “Sorry. I- I’m sorry.”

“This isn’t your fault,” Illya says heavily. He sits down next to Markos, letting him lean into his side. “None of this is. That _place_ , Markos, it gets into your head and makes you believe that you’re just a killer. That you’re worth nothing unless it is in service to your country.”

“But it’s been lying to you.” Gaby comes over and crouches down at his feet. “I’ll tell you what I told Illya, Markos. It lied to you when it said that you belonged to it, it lied to you when it said that what it forced you to do was necessary, and it lied to you from the moment it first said that you never deserved anything better. It was _wrong_ , Markos. They were all wrong.”

Markos says nothing. His shoulders shake as he buries his head in his hands. “It gets better,” Illya just says. He grips Markos’ shoulder, gives Gaby a grateful look. “Ask Gaby how awful I was for months after Italy. I kept expecting Waverly to snap and throw an ashtray at my head, or for…for an accident to happen out on mission. When I became too much of an inconvenience.”

“Peril,” Napoleon says helplessly.

Illya shakes his head. “Long time ago, Cowboy, and before Gaby made me realise she was my friend. My point is, it gets better, Markos. I promise you it gets better.”

“Starting from the moment that Julia gets here and is safe,” Napoleon says, trying desperately to put the image of a quiet knife in an alley when Illya outlives his usefulness out of his head. It never happened. It’s never going to happen, not if he has any say in it at all. “So, tell me about her. What’s she like?”

0-o-0-o-0

Napoleon leaves Gaby and Illya at his apartment to all but physically restrain Markos from following, and flags down a black cab to take him to Gatwick. For a moment his suit is slick and expensive, the familiar weight of a set of lockpicks in his pocket and a blueprint running through his head. He shrugs it off, a skin not quite fitting anymore but still so close. It would be but the work of a few moments to make it fit properly again. It’s so tempting.

But he knows that in his saner moments he would never be able to forgive himself for that. And there’s a young girl, and her father, counting on him.

It’s enough to be able to shove the thoughts to one side and wander through Gatwick airport like he’s just another civilian. A copy of the FT tucked under one arm helps, of course, though he won’t actually read it. It had taken Gaby less than an hour and a phone call to one of the UNCLE analysts to pull together a travel history for his passport, enough to pass anything but a very involved background check, and British customs barely glance at him.

It takes three hours to fly to Moscow. Napoleon spends it reviewing in his head what he knows about Moscow, Julia and the tactics Illya and Markos were able to tell him in the time they had that Oleg might use, if things go really wrong. Nothing written down, of course. He learned that one the hard way, a long time ago.

He walks straight through the Russian border controls without so much as a second glance, and has to suppress a childish grin for a few moments. The last few years before retiring he’d always had to sneak over any borders, never able to just walk through an airport without an extensive disguise and several contingency plans in place.

There’s a car waiting for him in a parking lot nearby, like Gaby said there would be, with the keys hidden inside one of the tire rims. Napoleon starts it up and turns the heating on as high as it will go. He’d forgotten how bloody cold Russia is.

There’s a burner phone in his pocket. He knows Illya must be worried, Markos even more so if he hasn’t reached his limit and finally passed out from exhaustion. But even a text might be compromising if not completely necessary. He leaves the phone in his pocket and starts driving.

Moscow sprawls out in front of him, growing closer and closer until it swallows him whole. Even sheltered in his car, heating on and radio a quiet buzz in the background, Napoleon feels like he can feel the weight of the city, just waiting to fall on him. Like a cat, watching a mouse creep along the floor until they’re in striking range.

Maybe it’s all the stories Illya has let slip. He has an idea of just how deep it all goes, how far down the black roots of the KGB sink into Moscow from underneath Lubyanka, the people that it has trapped in its grip. And beneath it all, a tinge of regret lacing all of Illya’s words.

This was his home. It still is his country, one that he was raised to love and defend and can’t stop loving now even with all the things it’s done. And now another is leaving it behind. And he’s here to get his daughter out before it can drag her down as well.

If someone had asked him, years ago, whether he ever thought he would end up here, risking himself for someone he barely knows because he’s a friend of his boyfriend, someone he’s pretty sure he’s going to fall in love with soon enough, he would have laughed in their face. And then pickpocketed them on the way out for good measure. But him a few years ago is a very different person from now, and someone he isn’t all that proud of. That’s enough to keep that restless itch under his skin in check as he gets closer and closer to his target.

He weaves the car through the early morning traffic as he gets closer, the city growing around him until old warehouses and industry begin to give way to closely-packed blocks of flats, which in turn give way to the shine of business, older buildings scattered in amongst the chrome and steel and glass. The Kremlin is just visible between the buildings, and Napoleon suppresses a shudder at the sight.

It takes him nearly an hour to get from the airport to the house. It’s in a quieter area, surrounded by trees and with a neatly mown lawn stretching out from the front door to the road. Napoleon would have driven past it without giving it a second glance.

Nobody tailed him here. Nobody is watching as he pulls up to the curb, kills the engine and gets out of the car. He adjusts his jacket, sets his shoulders back, and then walks up and knocks on the front door.

For a few moments, there’s nothing. And then he hears the sound of footsteps, the rattle of a chain. The door creaks open.

There’s an elderly woman standing on the other side, peering out through the small gap in the door. She’s stooped over, grey hair with flecks of dark red still just barely there, dark eyes that Napoleon instantly recognises from the photo of Julia in Markos’ pocket. “Who are you?”

“My name is Napoleon Solo, and I’m here on behalf of your grandson.” Napoleon pulls out the phone in his pocket and opens it to the video that he had pulled up as he’d gotten out of the car. He holds the screen towards her and presses play.

Markos’ voice is tinny through the small speakers of his phone as the video plays. Napoleon doesn’t listen to it. He’d watched all of the videos that Markos had put on his phone already, before he’d even gotten onto the plane. He studies Yelena’s face instead, watching the movement of her eyes across the phone screen, the tightening of her lips as Markos explains how he can’t go back, the way her gaze jumps up to meet his when his name is first mentioned.

The video ends, and Yelena stares at him. “You are a friend of his?” she asks.

“I only met him yesterday,” Napoleon says. He drops his phone back into his pocket with a shrug. “But I am very close with Illya Kuryakin.”

Yelena’s lips purse. “That boy. Always brought trouble with him.”

“Only what this city forced him to,” Napoleon counters, his voice smooth even as he can feel the urge to grit his teeth and defend Illya. It won’t help. “I’m here to help. Can I come in?”

Yelena gives him a long look. “If you must,” she says eventually, and she pulls the door open.

Napoleon steps inside. The house is quiet. Everything in the hallway looks neat, and well looked after, but it’s all old. The runner rug is a little worn, the chest at the side scuffed and not quite standing straight. There’s a framed photo on the chest that Napoleon immediately recognises as Markos, standing proud in his dress uniform, and next to a woman who has the same dark curls that he saw in the small photograph of Julia.

“My granddaughter,” Yelena says, catching Napoleon’s gaze. “She died only two years after that was taken. Julia is all I have left of her now.”

“I’m not here to snatch her out from under you,” Napoleon says frankly. “But can you honestly tell me that she does not belong with her father? Well away from people who could use her as leverage. She will have a good life in London.”

Yelena scoffs. “She will always be Russian.”

Napoleon nods. “Markos is still Russian. Illya is still very much Russian. But Markos has defected, Yelena. He hasn’t just skipped over to London for a brief visit. He’s defected to UNCLE. He _cannot_ come back. And Julia will not be safe here anymore, if she ever was. She needs to come with me to London.”

“I need to go where?”

Napoleon glances past Yelena. A young girl is standing at the foot of the stairs, one hand gripping the banisters. She’s staring at him with wide brown eyes. “Who are you?”

“My name is Napoleon Solo. Your father sent me.”

Julia creeps a little further forward. “Dad? Is he okay?”

“He’s fine,” Napoleon says. He slips past Yelena and pulls his phone out. “He’s in London. He left a video on my phone to explain everything to you.”

“Julia,” Yelena snaps.

Julia glances past Napoleon at Yelena. “Sorry,” she whispers. She takes the phone from Napoleon’s outstretched hand and presses play.

By the time the video finishes and Markos’ voice falls silent, Julia is trembling. She presses one hand to her mouth as Napoleon gently takes the phone from her hand. “Oh,” she whispers. “This is really happening?”

“I’m sorry,” Napoleon says softly. He crouches down opposite her. “Your dad is- he’s been very brave. He went to Illya to ask for help, because…because he doesn’t want to do the job he had to do here anymore. He doesn’t want to get hurt like that anymore. And that’s very brave of him. But he can’t do any of it without you.”

“Why can’t he come and get me?” Julia asks. “Why are you here?”

Napoleon sighs. “Because if he did, they wouldn’t let him go again. And they know how much he loves you, Julia. So they would use you to control him. Make him do things he doesn’t want to do, whatever they want him to do for them.”

“Like how they did with Uncle Illya,” Julia says. She’s twisting her fingers together, glancing between Napoleon and Yelena behind him. “But he’s better now. Dad says he’s in London, and he’s better now.”

Napoleon briefly bows his head and breathes through the sudden tightness in his chest. “He is, Julia,” he says, putting a soft smile on his face as he looks back up at her. “And your dad is with him right now. Your dad is going to work for the same people that Illya works for, and they’ll look after him.”

“They won’t make him go out when he’s hurt?” Julia asks quietly.

“No, honey,” Napoleon says softly. “They won’t do that. They’ll look after him, and Illya will look after him. And we’ll all look after you as well.” He glances back at Yelena, at the grief slowly seeping through the cracks in her expression. “I know it’s scary, but you can’t stay here anymore. You’ve got to be brave for me, and we’ll go to your dad. Together.” He offers her a smile. “How does that sound?”

Julia nods. “I want my dad.”

“Then I will move heaven and earth to get you to him.” Napoleon gets to his feet, wincing at the burn in his legs. “We don’t have much time. Can you pack everything you don’t want to leave behind into a bag for me?” He turns to Yelena. “I’ll need her documents. Passport, birth certificate, all of that. And anything of Markos’ that he should have.”

Yelena’s expression hardens, and she nods. “I have it all ready. Never know when you have to move quickly.” She laughs bitterly at Napoleon’s expression. “When you live through the Cold War, child, you learn a thing or two.”

Julia disappears upstairs, and Napoleon follows Yelena into the kitchen. “Julia is a bright girl,” Yelena says as she pulls a drawer open and pulls out a folder. “She will get a proper education, yes?”

“The best that can be provided,” Napoleon promises. He doesn’t mention how much it might cost. As the daughter of an UNCLE agent, it is probably inevitable that Julia will go to one of the central London schools that have nearly as much security as they do students. “I promise you that we’ll all look after her.”

“You have known Markos for a day,” Yelena says sharply. “You cannot promise that.”

“I’ve known Illya for well over a year now, and I’m not planning to ever leave him. I know how much Markos’ friendship means to Illya, and I saw first-hand how much Julia means to Markos.” Napoleon shrugs, picking up the file that Yelena has pulled out. “We’ll work it out.”

Yelena eyes him. “I will go and help Julia pack her things. And then you must go.”

“Of course.”

It takes only fifteen minutes for Julia to reappear, dragging a suitcase down the stairs behind her. “Dad’s medals,” she says abruptly. She turns back to Yelena. “Grandma, dad needs his medals. And his-” She trails off abruptly as Yelena pulls out a cardboard box from the living room.

“This contains all of his and his father’s medals,” she tells Napoleon as she hands a slim case, bound in leather, from inside the box. “And this one contains all of Julia’s mother’s jewellery. We were keeping it for her to have when she turned eighteen, but I suppose now will have to do.”

Napoleon carefully slips the cases into his bag. “I’ll make sure they get to him. And I’ll give you some space to say goodbye.”

He steps away as Yelena gathers Julia up into a hug. Julia is crying now, pressing her face into Yelena’s shoulder, and Napoleon turns away to try and give them a little bit of privacy.

Yelena pulls back after a few moments. “Wipe your eyes, child,” she says, her voice hardening. “Show him what a child of Moscow is. As for you,” she says, rounding on Napoleon as Julia slips away into the kitchen. “Don’t think I have not noticed you. Mr Solo. I know you are not one of Markos or Illya’s ilk.”

Napoleon can’t help but smile. Anyone who tries to use Yelena to find out where Julia or Markos have gone is going to have a much harder time than they think. “I was an art thief,” he says, hands in his pockets. “Up until about two years ago. And then I retired and opened a coffee shop opposite UNCLE headquarters, completely by accident. That’s how I met Illya.”

Yelena studies him. “And what is Illya to you?”

Napoleon swallows heavily, and hopes that he’s judged this situation correctly. “He’s my boyfriend. Lover. Partner. Whatever you want to call it.”

Yelena studies him for a long, excruciating moment. Finally, she hums and steps back. “Good. So you do have something to lose in amongst all of this. Remember that.”

Illya hasn’t been far from his mind ever since he stepped onto the plane. Napoleon’s phone is burning a hole in his pocket with the urge to call him and hear his voice. “I do,” he replies. “I promise I’ll keep her safe. Whatever it takes.” He hesitates. “They might come around asking questions,” he tells her. “Markos’ handlers. We think that they don’t know about any of this yet, we think Markos managed to slip their notice well enough, but we can’t be sure. And they will work it out soon enough. Hopefully after we touch down in London, but you’ll still be at risk.” He hesitates again. “You could come with us. It would be difficult, but we could pull it off.”

“I was born in this country, and I will die in this country.” Yelena straightens, and there is a steel glint in her eyes. “Let them come,” she says, in a voice that promises retribution. “Let them try. I was a sniper in the war. I crawled through the ruins of Stalingrad and I survived. I will remind them just what a solider of the Red Army can do.”

Julia reappears before Napoleon can find any sort of answer, tugging on a thick coat. “I’m ready,” she says.

Napoleon crouches down in front of her. “What we’re doing isn’t quite…allowed, by your dad’s handlers. So, we need to pretend that we’re not going to your dad. If anybody asks, I’m your aunt’s ex-husband, taking you to visit my family in London. We’ll go over it more in the car.” He adjusts her coat lapels, smoothing out the bunched fabric. “I’m going to get you to your dad, I promise, but I need you to do everything that I tell you to do. I need you to pretend that you know me, that you’re comfortable holding my hand or letting me help you. I know you don’t know me, and you don’t trust me, but I promise that your dad and Illya sent the right person to get you, and I’m going to get you to them.”

Julia stares at him, eyes flitting over his face. Napoleon doesn’t drop his gaze and lets her look.

“Okay,” she says eventually. She slips her hand into his, and it’s so small in his grasp. “Let’s go.”

“You are the daughter and granddaughter of soldiers,” Yelena says. She bends down and presses a kiss to Julia’s forehead. “You are a child of our motherland, brave, and strong, and I love you very much.”

Yelena watches them from the front door as Napoleon walks out to the car, hauling Julia’s suitcase into the trunk. She raises a hand in farewell as Napoleon starts the car and pulls away into the road, and Julia twists to watch the house disappear behind them, watching long after it’s vanished from view.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the first bit has gone smoothly, at least. I can't promise it will remain that easy, but I will promise a happy ending. And poor Illya, stuck behind in London whilst all this is going down. But he has everyone there for him, and a family is slowly coming together around him. Illya and Markos aren't actually related by blood, but for them it doesn't matter, they're brothers anyway, which makes Julia his niece.
> 
> I am already thinking of more ideas to write in this 'verse, including Markos and Julia, though with how busy work is right now I haven't found time yet to put any of them down on paper. Anything you want to see, feel free to yell at me in the comments! As always, kudos and comments are much loved!


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is good news and bad news! The bad news is that this story is slowly beginning to wrap up, I can't quite predict the exact number of chapters left but it's definitely less than 5. But, the good news is that this series is not finished, and I have spent the past couple weeks working on a new story to follow this one that is already at 13k and not yet finished, so there's more to come!
> 
> A slightly shorter chapter this time, but the next one will be longer. Chances are the next one won't be up until after Christmas, hopefully before the new year, but don't worry, I'm not leaving you on much of a cliffhanger! Thank you so much to the people who are sticking with this story with every new chapter even though my publishing schedule has long since become nonexistent, you are amazing.

Napoleon ditches the car at the airport. It’s done its job. “Hold my hand, please,” he says as they walk towards the airport. “I’m not letting you out of my sight until we’re safely with your dad.”

Julia nods, and slips her hand into his. “I know.” She looks up at him. “Dad doesn’t talk much about what he and Uncle Illya do, but I know it’s dangerous. Once, men came to our home and dad had me hide in my room until they left. He said after that they were from his work, but he didn’t want them knowing I was there.”

Napoleon has absolutely no idea what to do with that, so he just squeezes her hand in what he hopes is a reassuring gesture. “Well, I promise that your dad’s new colleagues are much nicer. Illya’s friend Gaby will teach you anything you want to know about engineering, if you’re interested.”

“I like space,” Julia says decisively. “I want to be the first woman on Mars.”

Napoleon nods. “Great choice. I’m sure Gaby knows a lot about aeronautical engineering.” He leads them towards the check-in desks, passports already in hand. People move around them, tourists and business types in sharp suits, and everyone in between. Nobody seems to be watching them, nobody is following them as Napoleon does wide loops around the airport before approaching the desks. They fly through check-in easily, and then security. Before Julia even knows it, Napoleon is gently shepherding her onto a plane and into her seat.

Julia stares out of the window as the plane taxis down the runway and then jolts forwards, building up speed until it starts climbing up into the air. Moscow spreads out beneath them, and Julia’s breath hitches.

“You know, I haven’t been home in well over a decade,” Napoleon says quietly. “I’m originally from Tennessee, one of the southern states in the US, but I’ve spent more time in Europe than I’ve spent there. But Tennessee is still where I’m from. I don’t have to be there to remember it.”

“How do you remember it?” Julia asks quietly.

Napoleon shrugs. “I make peach pie,” he says. “I sing the songs my mother taught me. I sometimes watch really awful American television about brides looking for their wedding dresses and being absolutely awful about it.” He looks over at Julia. “You’ll have your dad, and Illya. You’ll still speak Russian as much as possible, even if you have to speak English at school. You’ll still eat Russian food, though I absolutely cannot promise anything Illya cooks will be any good, considering he once burnt pasta.”

That gets a laugh out of Julia. “He once looked after me when grandma was ill and dad was working, and we had to get takeout every evening for dinner,” she tells him in a whisper, like Illya is sitting right behind them. “Dad made him come over and taught him how to cook pasta before he let him look after me again.”

“Oh, excellent.” Napoleon sets his paper down. There’s little anyone is going to be able to do on a plane, even if they were followed on here. He can afford to let his guard down, just a little. “Do you have lots of stories about Illya?”

If he doesn’t use this opportunity to at least get some blackmail material on his boyfriend, then he’s not even trying.

0-o-0-o-0

London comes into view through the clouds. Napoleon doesn’t let himself breathe a sigh of relief. If they’ve realised what’s happened back in Moscow, it would be easy to have someone waiting for them as they step out of the airport. One shot to incapacitate him, and then it would be child’s play to extract Julia in the commotion.

“You keep hold of me through the airport, okay,” Napoleon murmurs to Julia as she stares at the city. “Whatever happens, don’t let go of my hand. Got it?”

Julia looks up at him with wide eyes. “Where’s dad?”

“He’s at my apartment. It’s safer than him meeting us here.” Napoleon packs up his things and checks that both their passports are in his pocket. “We’ll wait for most people to get off the plane and then slip in amongst them. Illya’s friend Gaby will have cleared immigration for us.”

Julia slips her hand into his as the plane lands. “Here we go,” Napoleon murmurs. “Hold on tight.”

It’s harder to slip into the bustle of an airport with a young child stuck to his side and a suitcase trailing behind him, but it’s not impossible. Julia is quiet, her hand gripping his. He keeps her close to his side and hums snatches of songs as they move up towards the immigration desks.

Julia trembles slightly next to him. “All good?” Napoleon murmurs as they take another few steps forwards. Julia nods, biting at her lip, and Napoleon squeezes her hand. “We’re nearly there. Nearly done.”

He slides the passports across the desk to the immigration officer with a practiced smile. Julia’s hand is gripping his so tight that he’s sure his knuckles have gone white from the pressure, and Napoleon squeezes her hand even as he studies the immigration officer’s face, watching for any tell that he can see.

A small frown flickers across the man’s face as he looks at his screen. Napoleon carefully doesn’t react. Trying to escape through an airport is near impossible. Best to go quietly and wait for Illya to fix things on his end. There’s no way that Gaby isn’t monitoring flight manifests to watch for them, maybe even the airport security cameras as well.

If Moscow turns up, then that’s a different matter entirely. Napoleon reckons that if he ditches the suitcase and just picks Julia up, he still has a good shot at outrunning them.

“Enjoy your visit, Sir,” the immigration officer says, jolting Napoleon out of his thoughts. He stamps the passports and hands them back across the desk. “Welcome to London.”

The cold grey air of London greets them, and to Napoleon, it feels a little like home.

His phone buzzes in his pocket as soon as they get out of the guts of the airport. Napoleon lets go of Julia’s hand for a brief moment as he digs it out. He presses it between his ear and shoulder, reaching back for Julia. “Hello?”

“It’s me,” Gaby says. “There’s a dark blue Ford waiting for you outside, driver by the name of Sally. She’ll introduce herself with her UNCLE ID. She has instructions to bring you straight here.”

“Sounds good,” Napoleon replies. “Markos?”

“Currently being sat on by Illya to stop him completely blowing his location before we smooth everything over with Whitehall.” Now that Napoleon is listening, he can hear the sounds of a scuffle in the background. “Don’t worry,” Gaby says. “I’m keeping them well away from the expensive stuff. How’s Julia?”

“Good, but she’ll be better once we get her to her dad.” Napoleon squeezes Julia’s hand reassuringly, glancing down at her. “I’ll see you-”

He trails off as they walk out towards the entrance of the terminal. Julia stiffens by his side. Napoleon quickly turns and begins to walk in a random direction, drifting through the crowds towards a coffee bar across the terminal. “Hold onto my hand, Julia,” he says to her. “Don’t let go. No matter what.”

“Solo?” Gaby asks in his ear.

Napoleon hands the suitcase off to Julia to free up his other hand. “There are three men in poorly tailored suits outside the terminal entrance,” he says into the phone, his voice low. “There are guns beneath their jackets.”

There’s a sharp intake of breath over the line. “Okay,” Gaby says. “Agents are on their way. Can you lie low for twenty minutes?”

Napoleon looks around them. There are airport officials wandering around in amongst the tourists and the business suits, flight attendants and security personnel. Two police walk through with a dog trotting at their heels. “I can do better than that, Gaby,” he says. “Get Gatwick police on the line, make up some sort of story about me so they don’t get too pissed off when I break into the restricted areas of this terminal.”

“Solo,” Gaby says, a warning note in her voice.

“I know what I’m doing,” Napoleon says quickly. “Let me do what you sent me here to do.”

There’s a familiar adrenaline beginning to rise up in him, one that sets his heart racing even as he hangs up and pockets the phone, as his face smooths over into that easy mask. “Okay, Julia,” he says, squeezing her hand. “We’re going to have to improvise a bit.”

To her credit, Julia just squares her shoulders and nods. “What do we do?”

Napoleon studies the crowds around them. “Okay. There are three men outside who I think would very much like to stop us from getting to your dad. So I’m going to sic the British police on them. I need you to start crying, and let me pick you up.”

To her credit, it takes Julia all of a few seconds to start tearing up. Napoleon hoists her up onto his hip and she wraps her arms around her neck, burying her head into his shoulder. “Nicely done,” he murmurs in his ear, and then he grabs the suitcase and makes a beeline for the police officers. “Excuse me!” he calls out, shifting his voice into a British accent with just a touch of refinement and an underlying West Country accent. “Officers, excuse me!”

The two police officers turn towards him. Napoleon puts on just the right level of indignation, mixed with panic at having a child crying on his shoulder, and spins a story about three men outside who harassed his daughter as they entered. A few details about them using phrases he knows the officers consider buzzwords for security risks, and he can see the officers’ expressions change. One last excuse about calming his daughter down, and he breezes past the officers as they head for the doors.

“Excellent work,” Napoleon says to Julia as they disappear around a corner. “That will distract them for a little bit at the doors. Now, I just need to distract a staff member…” He spots a middle-aged woman in an airport jacket walking towards the desks. “Perfect. Here’s what we’re going to do.”

Napoleon hangs back at a safe distance and watches as Julia wanders up to the woman, arms wrapped around herself and bottom lip artfully trembling. He’s too far away to hear her, but he can see the woman’s expression soften as she crouches down to listen. The woman nods, and then looks around with a frown on her face.

That’s his cue.

He affects a suitably worried expression and hurries over. “Oh, you had me worried, darling!” he says to Julia, pulling her close. He turns to the airport staffer. “Thank you so much,” he says, reaching out and shaking her hand. “It’s hard to keep track of them sometimes, honestly, especially someone as busy as here.”

“Oh, it’s no worry,” the woman says with a kind smile.

Napoleon feels almost bad about quickly pocketing her ID badge and key fob. Almost. Julia comes first.

“Come on, darling,” he says. “We’ve got to get going.” He throws the woman a charming smile. “Thanks again.”

They weave their way through the crowds, Napoleon gradually pulling them closer and closer to the employees’ door. A lull in the movement of people, and the door clicks open under his hands. “In we go,” Napoleon murmurs. “We’re taking a little shortcut. Just pretend like you’re meant to be here and nobody will bother you.”

The gleam of the airport promptly disappears as he shuts the door behind them. Napoleon straightens his shoulders and picks up speed. Julia’s hand slips back into his, and he grips it tight.

There’s a knack to pretending that he belongs somewhere. Even after nearly two years of retirement, it’s not something that he’s forgotten. Napoleon puts the ID badge on his lapel and a pleasant smile on his face, makes idle conversation with Julia and nods at anyone they walk past. The suitcase trundles along behind them, and nobody stops them.

Napoleon hasn’t ever been in the guts of Gatwick airport specifically, but they’re all built in a similar fashion. Besides, the police station is visible from the tram between the two terminals, and even inside the restricted areas everything is so helpfully signposted.

“Are you going to steal a police car?” Julia whispers to him as they cross the small courtyard towards the station.

Napoleon laughs. “Oh, wish that I could. No, that would cause a bit of an incident. I’m going to borrow a police car, with their permission.” He checks his phone, and an affirmative text from Gaby is lit up on the screen.

God bless Gaby Teller. The police are barely fazed by Napoleon walking straight in and asking for a car and a hi-vis jacket, only insisting that one of the officers goes with them for additional security. Napoleon throws the suitcase into the back of a car, takes a couple of minutes to watch the Russian goons still arguing with the police outside the terminal, and then pulls on the offered jacket. With a pair of sunglasses and a slight ruffle of his carefully slicked-back hair, he could walk straight down Oxford Street with nobody the wiser.

“I’m going to need you to hide,” he says to Julia as she gets in the back of the car. “Do up your seatbelt but duck your head, and I’m going to put a coat over you, okay? Best we can do without your dad getting very upset with me for letting you not wear a seatbelt in the car.” That gets a small smile from Julia, and he hides her as best as he can before slipping in the front of the car and hoping to hell that this works.

They’re about halfway down the M25 when the police officer driving flicks her eyes up to the rearview mirror. “We’re being followed.”

Napoleon glances in the side mirror. “I thought so.” He takes a moment to curse out Moscow in his head, and then pulls out his phone and starts texting. “When’s the next service station?”

“Couple miles,” the officer replies. “Cobham.”

“Good. Take the exit there and pull up in the car park.” Napoleon pockets his phone again and shrugs off his police jacket. There’s no point in it now. He twists in his seat and gently nudges Julia. “We’re being followed, but I’ve got a plan. Here’s what I need you to do.”

0-o-0-o-0

Napoleon takes a breath, waves away the offered taser from the officer, and gets out of the police car. The car that had been following them has pulled up a little ways behind them, and three men are waiting next to it.

Napoleon pulls out his phone and quickly snaps a picture of them. “Smile, boys,” he says with a grin as he pockets his phone. “You’re on camera.”

One of them steps forwards. His jacket looks like it might burst at the seams as he crosses his arms, making the gun at his side even more obvious. “You have no idea what you are involved in,” he says, his accent thick. “Walk away and nobody gets hurt.”

“Yeah, well I think I’m in too deep to do that now.” Napoleon slowly circles the car, hands in his pockets. “Also, you are Russian agents on English soil, and ever since that whole spy poisoning debacle down in Salisbury- you know, the one you lot royally fucked up? Well, they’ve been a bit tetchy about people like you just wandering around. There might be a bit of an uproar if, for example, you’re found kidnapping a young girl.”

“Is that a threat?” one of them asks, his hand hovering near his side.

Napoleon grins at him. “It can be if you really want.” He steps up close to one of the men, brushing a non-existent piece of lint from his shoulder. “Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just really pleased to see me?”

He’s shoved back with a sharp push, and staggers back into one of the other men who has circled around behind him. “Well, that’s a nice way to treat someone you’ve never met,” Napoleon says, straightening his suit jacket with a pout. He turns to the third man. “What about you?”

The punch that comes isn’t exactly surprising. Napoleon manages to turn with it just enough to soften the blow, but his head still snaps to the side and he nearly trips with the force of it. “Fair enough,” he says as he straightens, hand cupping the side of his face. He can taste blood in his mouth from where he bit his tongue, but he just swallows it. “Now, can we talk business?”

“Who are you?” one of the men growls. “What do you want?”

Napoleon grins at him, ignoring the pulse of pain in his jaw as he does so. “Now, now, telling you who I am would be tipping my hand. As for what I want?” He shrugs, hands in his pockets. “I want you to leave this country and not come after the people I care about ever again.”

“Is that a threat?”

“Not from me.” Napoleon’s grin sharpens. “You know who I am friends with. Do you really want Illya Kuryakin and Gaby Teller deciding that you are important enough for them to worry about? I’m harmless compared to them.” He shrugs again. “Well, mostly harmless. Now, can we make a deal?”

“What deal?” one of them growls.

“It’s simple.” Napoleon takes a few paces away from them, carefully putting himself just out of their reach. “You leave us alone. You tuck your tails between your legs and get on the next flight back to Moscow, where you tell your superiors that you failed, and you do not come after Markos, his family or the people around him.” The grin falls from his face as he studies the three men in front of him. “And you think for a minute, just a minute, about the fact that if Illya left, if Markos has now left, then it isn’t impossible. That when they demanded everything from you, told you that you will always belong to them, they must have been lying.”

The agent in the middle flinches, just barely. Napoleon lets his gaze flick to him as he gives him the smallest of smiles. “Do this, and we won’t make your lives a living hell,” he says, his voice steady. “I don’t care for anyone trying to hurt the people I care about. Walk away, now. Before anyone else gets hurt.”

He can see the middle agent, younger than the other two, hesitate for just a moment. The other two agents reach towards their guns. “Go ahead,” Napoleon says. “Shoot me in a McDonald’s parking lot, literally right next to a police car. That’ll work wonders.”

“Give us the girl,” one of the agent says.

“Oh, the girl?” Napoleon asks. He makes a show of looking behind the agents, towards where the police car is. “You mean the one who just got into that car behind you?”

The agents spin as one to see an unmarked black car behind the police car. A door slams shut, and then the car speeds off across the car park. The three agents curse, and scramble for their own car. Napoleon quickly gets out of the way before they can remember he is there, giving them a wave as their car peels away with a screech of tires against asphalt.

He waits until their car is back on the motorway before heading back to the police car. “Well, that worked perfectly.”

Julia looks up at him from the back of the car. “They’re gone?”

“They’re gone,” Napoleon confirms. “We’ll get off the motorway and get you to your dad. Preferably before they realise I lifted their car keys and messed with it so the signal will be lost in ten minutes and they’ll break down on the side of the motorway.” He presses gingerly at his cheekbone with a wince. “Let’s go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did promise it wasn't going to be too hard for Napoleon to get Julia! And the reunion between her and Markos is coming very soon, I promise, as is a little of the fallout of Napoleon utilising his old skills like this. It's all beginning to wrap up, just a bit.
> 
> As always, kudos and comments are much, much loved.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope everyone who celebrates it had as good a Christmas that can be under the *waves vaguely at the world* y'know, and that everyone else had a good holiday. As promised last chapter, the reunion has come! I promised I wouldn't let Julia come to too much harm, and I stick by that here. It's (almost) all fluff from here on out.
> 
> I am working on other ideas for this series, what happens after this story (there are plot points I haven't touched yet all the way back in the first story) but writing is slow because life. There are a few more chapters left of this story, sorry I can't be more precise, and then the next one should hopefully go up no more than a few weeks after this one is concluded.

Julia is barely awake by the time they pull up to Napoleon’s apartment. A circuitous route and three car changes means it’s taken them nearly two hours to make it back. “Here we go,” the agent driving the car says as she parks along the curb. “Need help with anything?”

Napoleon eases Julia out of the back seat and picks her up. “I think we’re good,” he says as he adjusts his hold on Julia so he can keep hold of her with one hand and pick up the suitcase with the other. “Thank you so much.”

The agent grins. “Can’t say no when Gaby asks for help. Besides, I got to meet the elusive boyfriend this way.”

Napoleon snorts. “I literally own the coffee shop across from your building, but sure.” He gives her a grateful smile. “Tell all the others I said thank you, as well. Free coffee for everyone who helped for a month, I promise.”

“Be still my heart,” the agent says. “Careful, or I might just try and steal you out from under Illya.”

“You would fail entirely,” Napoleon replies. “Thanks again.”

He takes Julia inside and up the three flights of stairs to his apartment. He unlocks his own front door, juggling Julia, keys and the suitcase, and heads in. “Anyone home?”

Markos springs up from the sofa. “Julia,” he gets out, and then Julia is jumping out of Napoleon’s hold and Markos is sprinting across the room, falling down to his knees and gathering her up in his arms. He is talking too fast for Napoleon to make out, choked off words between sobs as he holds Julia to him, her face buried in his neck.

Napoleon turns away to give them a little bit of privacy, to see Illya and Gaby waiting in the kitchen. “All good on your end?” he asks, dropping into a seat at the table. He’s suddenly exhausted, the weight of what he has just done slamming down onto him all at once.

“Everything is smoothed over with Whitehall,” Gaby says as she pours Napoleon a cup of coffee and slides it over. “Moscow found out, which you obviously know, but Waverly is pulling strings as we speak. It’ll be much easier now Julia is here.”

Napoleon hums. “Did anyone pick up the three agents stuck on the side of the M25?”

Illya makes a noise at that, and Napoleon looks up at him. “It’s fine,” he says at Illya’s expression. “They only got one punch in.”

That is evidently the wrong thing to say. Illya’s expression darkens, and his hands clench into fists at his side. “Hey, hey, no,” Napoleon says quickly, getting up and planting himself in Illya’s path to the front door. “You cannot go after them. I’m fine. I’m absolutely fine, and you going out to find them is only going to put yourself in danger, which puts the rest of us in danger.”

“He’s right,” Gaby says. “Sit back down, Illya, and let’s handle this the proper way. Get some ice for Solo’s face, it looks like it’s going to bruise.”

“I’m going to make them pay for all of this,” Illya says quietly, but he fetches an ice pack from the freezer and wraps a tea towel around it. Napoleon sinks back into his seat, and Illya presses the ice pack to his cheek. “I will burn Lubyanka down to the ground,” he says quietly, studying Napoleon’s face intently. “For doing this.”

“I’ll quite happily hand you the matches if that’s what you want to do, but I don’t need you to burn anything down for me,” Napoleon says. He covers Illya’s hand with his. “We got Julia back, that’s what’s important, and I’m sure you and Gaby can do all sorts of things to make those agents’ lives difficult. Especially considering I pickpocketed all three of them and took their licences. And took a photo of them.”

He hands the licences over and the photo on his phone. Illya zooms in. “Gleb is the one on the left. He’s a brute, but smart. I broke his nose once. Don’t recognise the one on the right. And Alexi is in the middle.” He hums, studying the picture. “Oleg must have snatched him from spetsnaz whilst I was gone.”

“Last year. Oleg picked him up last year.” They all look up at Markos as he enters the kitchen. Julia is in his arms, clinging securely to him. There are tear tracks down his cheeks, and Julia’s breath hasn’t quite evened out yet, but he gives them all a relieved smile. “Thank you,” he says. “All of you. I owe you everything.”

“You don’t owe us anything at all,” Illya says quietly. “You know I would have done anything in my power to help you.” He pushes out a chair with his foot that Markos gratefully sinks into, Julia all but asleep on his lap. “She okay?”

“She’ll be fine,” Markos says, pushing her hair out of her face. “Just tired. This is obviously a lot.” He presses a kiss to the top of her head. “What do we do about the agents in the country? Oleg must be furious.”

“Enough time for Waverly to do his magic, and he won’t be able to touch you,” Gaby says. “We just need to delay them until Oleg is forced to recall them. We can’t touch them directly, though, or it will only complicate things.” She abruptly grins. “We should let some certain people at MI6 know that there are people encroaching on their area. I’ll make some calls. The double-ohs do always get so territorial.” She gets to her feet, presses a quick kiss to Illya’s cheek and then heads out into the living room.

Napoleon whips up a dinner, listening to Gaby talk on the phone out in the living room, and Illya and Markos hash out a tentative plan for what comes next as Julia dozes in his lap. At some point, she wakes up enough to realise where she is, and Napoleon watches as she clambers into Illya’s lap and wraps her arms around his neck, chattering a mile a minute about everything that happened. Napoleon can’t help the soft smile on his face as he stirs the sauce at the stove.

“Alexi is SVR now, then,” Illya says as Julia falls back asleep in his lap and he hands her back to Markos. “I should have expected that.”

“He was a good kid,” Markos says quietly. “Easy for Oleg to control.” He shifts Julia to a more comfortable position in his lap. “Pity.”

“He’s the smaller one?” Napoleon asks over his shoulder. “Ashy brown hair?” At Markos’ nod, he hums. “I told them that they had been lied to, that you and Illya were proof that what they had been told was a lie. Alexi reacted. He flinched. So, if there is anyone there who could follow you out, it might be him.”

Markos breathed out with a nod. “Good. That’s good.”

He gets up a few minutes later to put Julia to sleep in Napoleon’s guest bedroom. Illya gets to his feet with a sigh, and comes up behind Napoleon at the stove, slipping an arm around his waist. “Thank you, Cowboy,” he murmurs into Napoleon’s neck. Napoleon can’t help but sigh. He can feel Illya’s worried gaze on the back of his neck. “What is it?” Illya asks.

Napoleon eyes the pans on the stove, decides they don’t need constant stirring, and twists so he can press a kiss to Illya’s lips. “Just don’t ask me to do something like that again,” he says quietly. “Not unless it’s as important as this. There’s a reason I retired.”

Illya frowns, and tilts Napoleon’s head up with a finger under his chin. “Cowboy?”

Napoleon manages a tight smile. “I know this was important, Peril. I wouldn’t have volunteered to help if I didn’t want to, and if I hadn’t thought this was the best plan available. But…I don’t know.” He sighs, letting his head tip forwards onto Illya’s shoulder. “Prado was really close. I don’t like how close he was.”

Illya’s hand comes to rest on the back of his neck. “You’re not him anymore. If you were, you never would have stayed after Italy.”

Napoleon shakes his head. “What if I’m just one…one wrong step away from him? Sharp suit, silver tongue, lockpicks in a hidden pocket. Charming my way across the world. It would be so easy.”

“If you’re worrying over it right now, I think it would be anything but easy,” Illya says, his voice a low rumble in his chest. Napoleon loops his arms around Illya’s waist and leans into him. “You just got Julia out from under the nose of Moscow for a man you met a day ago,” Illya continues, “because you knew it was the right thing to do. You are a good person, Leon. Better than I deserve.”

“Don’t say that,” Napoleon mutters into Illya’s shoulder. “You deserve the world.”

He feels Illya nod. “Well, my world includes this infuriating coffee shop owner who won’t believe me when I say he’s a good person, and who makes the best coffee I’ve ever had. So he’ll just have to stick around for a while.” He presses a kiss to the top of Napoleon’s head. “Your sauce is burning.”

Napoleon yelps. He spins around, grabbing the spoon from the side. “You couldn’t have led with that?” He starts stirring. “Slice up some red peppers, about quarter inch wide. Trick to saving a burnt tomato sauce is cooking in red peppers and then blitzing the entire thing. Adds some sweetness.” He pauses, and then twists to look at Illya. “Thank you, Peril.”

Gaby returns with a pleased grin on her face from whatever those phone calls entailed, and a promise to Markos that the agents Oleg sent weren’t going to get anywhere close to him or Julia. Julia wakes up enough to eat dinner, and Markos puts her straight back to bed in Napoleon’s spare room before joining the rest of them at the table.

Napoleon uncorks a bottle of wine and fetches four glasses. “I think we all need this.”

Markos swallows half of his in one gulp. “I can’t tell you how thankful I am for what you’ve done,” he says to Napoleon. “Anything you want from me, you have it.”

Napoleon curls his fingers around the stem of his wine glass. “I’m not in the business of trading favours, Markos,” he says quietly. “You absolutely do not owe me anything for what I did.” He tilts his wine glass to one side, watching the wine leave legs down the glass. “I can understand why you might want to, but I’ll make one thing clear here. I’m not Prado anymore. I haven’t been for years, and I don’t want to be that person anymore. I did this for you because…well, for a lot of reasons. But none of them were because I want to go back to that life.”

Illya reaches over and interlaces his fingers with Napoleon’s where his other hand rests on the table, and Napoleon gives him a reassuring smile. “It’s a lot,” Illya says to Markos. “I know it is. But it gets better from here. I promise you it gets better from here.”

Markos wipes at his eyes and heaves a breath. “There’s a lot that needs to be considered,” Gaby says. “You’ll have to come in to talk to Waverly tomorrow morning. Julia can come with you, of course. UNCLE will finance her education at one of the central London schools, like it does for children of other agents. There are other things to deal with; what it is you can bring to UNCLE, where you’re going to live, all that jazz. But that can all wait for tomorrow.”

Illya nods. “Is there anything else to do tonight, or are we done for now?”

“Waverly already has your briefing on possible responses from Moscow?” Gaby asks him. At Illya’s nod, she hums. “Well, I don’t think there’s much else to do tonight on our end, though I pity the people on the night shift at UNCLE who have to deal with Waverly when he’s tired. He gets very…British,” she explains at Markos’ confused expression. “And it becomes even harder to try and work out what he actually wants you to do.”

“He’s a good handler, though?” Markos asks. “Fair?”

Gaby nods. “He wants to do the best he can for the safety of the world, and that sometimes requires sacrifice on our part, but he looks after us well. Illya and I made an agreement, a few months after he came to UNCLE, that he could not use Oleg as a measure for anything that Waverly does. He just can’t. And whatever position you end up in at UNCLE, I think the same agreement is going to have to apply to you. Based on what Illya has told me, you cannot expect the same type of treatment that you underwent at Moscow.” She taps her fingers against the stem of her wine glass. “You do understand that the way he treated you is wrong, right?”

“Gaby,” Illya cautions.

Markos holds up one hand. “It’s okay, Illya. Yes, I know it was wrong. I don’t think I realised until you went to Italy and never came back.” The barest of smiles tugs at the corner of his lips as he looks at Illya. “You were the most loyal person I knew in Lubyanka. For you to not come back, for you to go to UNCLE…I never believed it when people said you were a traitor. I knew it wasn’t possible that you would betray your country. And I started asking questions. It took a while, but I began to realise that what we were doing…it wasn’t right.” He takes a gulp of his wine. “That was when Oleg started tightening the leash.”

“Well, fuck him,” Napoleon says. He’s surprised at the intensity in his voice. “He’s not welcome here. I’ll put it up on a post-it if I have to.” Illya snorts at that, and just shakes his head at Markos’ quizzical expression. “Inside joke,” Napoleon explains. “Now, I should probably fill you all in on everything that happened in Moscow, now Julia has gone to sleep.” Markos nods, and Napoleon takes a large sip of his wine, securely laces his fingers with Illya’s, and then recounts everything that had happened as soon as he’d first arrived at Gatwick.

By the time he’s finished, the bottle of wine is almost empty. Gaby upends the last few drops over her wine glass. “Like I said, it could have been much worse,” she says. “I had half of my favours ready to be called in, just in case it went south.”

“I’m so pleased you trusted me to do this,” Napoleon says wryly. He shakes his head at Gaby’s arched brow. “No, I didn’t mean that. I know you were just taking precautions. I’m sure I would have done the same, if I was in your position. At least you didn’t have to use up any of them.”

Gaby shrugs. “Would have been worth it. Besides, not like I can’t get some more favours owed fairly quickly. The amount we rack up out on missions is extraordinary sometimes.” She sips at her wine with a laugh. “If you ever need a really good tattooist in Hong Kong, for example, I’ve got you covered.”

Illya shakes his head, but there’s a smile curling his lips. “Maybe later, chop shop girl.” He glances over at Markos. “You should get some sleep. You look exhausted.”

Markos drains his wine glass and sets it back down on the table. “I should. I’ll see you all in the morning.” He gets to his feet and then pauses, fingers tapping on the table. “Thank you,” he says quietly. “All of you. I couldn’t have done this without you.”

“I’m glad you’re here,” Illya just replies.

There’s a sheen to Markos’ eyes, but he clears his throat and nods. “Goodnight.”

“Well,” Gaby says with a long sigh as he disappears, the sound of the door shutting behind him. “We’ve done good here.” She stifles a yawn in her hand. “Your sofa is calling me, Solo, so I’m going to crash. Night.”

Napoleon follows Illya to bed not long after, hanging up his suit and stealing one of Illya’s old army t-shirts to sleep in. He crawls under the covers and settles next to Illya, wrapping an arm around his waist. “We did good,” he says quietly in the darkness. “Right?”

Illya rolls over so he’s facing Napoleon. “I didn’t know Julia existed until she was five years old.”

Napoleon waits patiently, propping himself up on one elbow so he can see Illya’s face. His other hand draws slow patterns across Illya’s side, tracing random shapes on his skin. “We were on a mission together,” Illya says slowly. “Don’t remember where precisely. Markos was shot, and extraction was…it was not guaranteed. We sat in that jungle for hours, in dead of night, and Markos told me about her. Told me that if he died right there and then, I had to make sure she was looked after.”

“Peril,” Napoleon says softly.

Illya shakes his head. “It was- how do you raise a child in life like this?” he asks. “He tried so hard to give her normal childhood. But it was impossible. That place made it impossible.”

“She’s only ten,” Napoleon reminds him. “Kids are resilient, and whilst she knows that what Markos has been through isn’t exactly normal, she also definitely knows how much he loves her. She wanted to come here. And she’s a great kid, who is now going to have a much better life here. We’ll all make sure of that.”

“I know you didn’t sign up for-”

“I signed up for you,” Napoleon says firmly. “I love _you_. Which means I will take everything that comes with you, even if it means helping someone I don’t know because they’re your friend, or letting Gaby run a betting pool on how long it takes me to notice when agents come into my shop. She wants to add a bonus round, by the way, for agents who have already been spotted but want to try and get past me in a disguise.”

Illya stares at him. “You love me?”

Napoleon swallows heavily. “Yeah,” he says softly, his voice so quiet in the darkness. “Course I do. It would be impossible for me to not love you, by this point.” Illya’s lips part in a soft _oh_. “You don’t have to say it back,” Napoleon says quickly. “I’m not asking-”

“I love you too, Cowboy.”

Napoleon blinks. “Ah- what?”

A grin curls Illya’s lips. “You think I would not?”

“I- well, I honestly didn’t think it through,” Napoleon admits. He runs a hand through his hair. “Well, that’s…convenient, I guess.”

Illya huffs a laugh. “Convenient? That is not very romantic.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, were you expecting roses and champagne and a violinist in the corner?” Napoleon grins back at him. “Let me get right on that, we’ll have a do-over and I’ll do it properly.” He makes a show of throwing back the covers and reaching for the light. “This is London, I’m sure I can find a florist that delivers this late.”

Illya laughs, and tugs him back down onto the bed. “You’re not going anywhere,” he says, and he pulls Napoleon in for a kiss that Napoleon returns eagerly. Illya’s lips are warm against his, his body a heavy weight as Napoleon rolls over and pushes Illya onto his back. Napoleon’s hands settle on Illya’s sides, rucking his shirt up so he can run his hands across his skin. Illya makes a muffled noise that Napoleon swallows eagerly, and he deepens the kiss until Illya has to pull away to breathe.

Illya leans up and kisses him again, smiling against Napoleon’s lips. “You’re too tired to start something you can’t finish,” he murmurs against Napoleon’s lips. He pushes Napoleon off enough that he isn’t pressing him down into the mattress and wraps an arm around his waist. “Go to sleep. Love you, Cowboy.”

Napoleon tugs Illya closer until he’s sprawled out on top of him, head tucked into the crook of his neck. “Of course you do,” he says, tugging the covers back up over them and letting himself succumb to exhaustion. “I’m adorable.”

0-o-0-o-0

He’s not sure what’s woken him. His eyes blink open to darkness, and it takes him a few seconds to remember where he is, everything that happened in the last day. There’s a sudden urge to get up, to check that Markos is still there in the spare bedroom, Julia with him, but before he can throw back the covers there’s a faint noise from beside him.

Illya rolls over. Napoleon is sprawled out across the other side of the bed, the duvet bunched up around him. As Illya watches, he twitches, flinching away from nothing. A muffled whimper slips past his lips and he shifts restlessly, one hand grasping at the sheets beneath him. His brow is furrowed, and Illya can see a muscle jumping in his clenched jaw.

“Cowboy,” he says softly. His hand hovers above Napoleon’s shoulder, close enough that he can feel the heat radiating from his skin. He doesn’t touch. He’s not sure what will happen if he does.

He knows he wakes violently. Gaby does too. Markos did when they worked together, and he’s probably only gotten worse since Illya left. But he has no idea what Napoleon does when he’s woken from what is obviously a nightmare.

Even asleep, Napoleon solves the problem for him. He shifts again in his sleep and presses back into Illya’s hand. He’s trembling beneath Illya’s grip, ever so slightly, and without meaning to Illya tightens his grip as something else tightens in his chest.

Napoleon starts awake, eyes flying open as he sits up. “Don’t!”

“Cowboy,” Illya says softly as Napoleon gasps for breath, eyes darting wildly around the room. He reaches out and places one hand carefully on Napoleon’s back. “Napoleon?”

Napoleon shudders underneath him as he heaves a breath. “Peril?”

His voice is so quiet it’s barely even a whisper. Illya moves without thinking, wrapping his arms around Napoleon from behind and resting his chin on his shoulder. “It’s just me,” he murmurs. “You’re okay.”

Napoleon sags back into him with a sigh. “Sorry for waking you,” he whispers.

Illya just adjusts his position to more easily hold the both of them up, and presses a soft kiss to the hollow of Napoleon’s throat where his shirt has slipped down. “It’s okay,” he replies. “Nightmare?” Napoleon shakily nods. “Want to talk about it?” Illya offers.

“You should go back to sleep,” Napoleon murmurs. “Don’t worry about me.”

Illya instinctively tightens his grip around Napoleon’s waist. “Do you want to talk about it?” he just offers again.

A tremble runs through Napoleon’s body, and then his head drops forwards. Something warm and wet drops onto Illya’s arm where it’s tight around his waist, and Illya abruptly realises it’s a tear. “Leon,” he says helplessly, and a sob slips through Napoleon’s lips as he turns around and just buries his head into Illya’s shoulder.

Illya wraps his arms back around him, one hand stroking down Napoleon’s back as the shoulder of his shirt slowly grows wet. “It wasn’t real,” he says. “Whatever you dreamed about. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t you.”

Napoleon shakes his head, fingers curling in Illya’s shirt. Illya just keeps hold of him, makes his breathing deep and even and smooths a hand down his back, over and over again. “Breathe with me, Cowboy,” he says as Napoleon gasps for breath against his shirt. “It’s okay. Whatever it is, it is okay.”

Slowly, ever so slowly, Napoleon’s breathing evens out against his shoulder. Illya reaches over and turns on the bedside lamp with a quiet click. “What was it about?” he asks quietly.

Napoleon clears his throat and sits up, one hand wiping at his cheeks. “I don’t really remember,” he mutters. “I just…ballrooms, I think, and- and gold. Everything gleaming. Running over rooftops, chasing down art I couldn’t even make out. And I woke up and- and for a second, I was right there again. I was chasing that high again.” His breath hitches, and he looks away.

Illya reaches out and wipes away a tear that has spilled over and is rolling down Napoleon’s cheek. “It feels worse in middle of night,” he says. “It always does. You do not want to go back to it, yes?”

Napoleon is suddenly gripping his shirt, staring at him intently as if he can make Illya read his own mind and believe him. “No, no, I would _never_ ,” he says desperately. “I won’t leave, I’m not going to leave, I can’t go back to that. I won’t- I’m not leaving, I’m _not_. I-I won’t…”

“Okay, okay. I believe you.” Illya gently untangles Napoleon’s fingers from his shirt, tugging Napoleon forwards at the hitch in his breath until he’s slumped forwards into him again. “I believe you,” he murmurs, carding his fingers through Napoleon’s hair as his breath hitches and stifled sobs spill out across the crook of Illya’s neck. “It’s okay, I believe you.”

“Don’t let me go back to that,” Napoleon says into his shoulder, his words tripping over each other in their haste. “Please, don’t let me leave.”

Illya shushes him, wrapping his arms around him and holding him close, the warmth of Napoleon’s body against his. It’s almost impossible to believe how simple these sorts of gestures have become, this casual intimacy he never thought he would find for himself. He presses a soft kiss to the top of Napoleon’s head. “I would stop you,” he says. “If you ever tried to go back. I would do whatever it took to stop you. So would Gaby. So would all agents who are addicted to your coffee.” He presses another kiss to his hair. “I would swear you put drugs in your brownies, number of people who buy them, if I had not watched you make them.”

Napoleon huffs a wet laugh into the crook of his neck. “I’m just that good.”

“You are,” Illya says. He breathes in the faint scent of Napoleon’s aftershave, the smell beneath that he has become so used to that is just Napoleon. “You are,” he says again, and he has to swallow around the sudden surge of emotion that sits tangled in his throat.

“Thank you,” Napoleon whispers against his skin.

Illya wraps his arms around him and wants to never let go. “It has been long day,” he says. “Let’s go back to sleep. It always feels better in morning.” He leans over and switches the lamp back off, the room falling into soft darkness. Napoleon clings to him as he lies back down, curling up against him. Illya just keeps hold of him, one hand carding softly through his hair, until Napoleon’s breath evens out against his neck and he falls back asleep.

“If you left, I would follow,” Illya whispers into the darkness, and then sleep claims him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As this is technically an AU of the arts professor series, yes, Gleb and Alexi are who you think they are. No promises on them appearing in later stories, but Alexi isn't much changed from Death of the Author, so infer from that what you will.
> 
> I did tell you it would be _mostly_ fluff from now onwards, but I couldn't resist the opportunity for a nightmare in there. Promise it all ends happily.
> 
> As always, kudos and comments are much loved.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is a bit late! Not that I have a proper publishing schedule for anything, but hey, this is late even for my poor standards. I meant to put this chapter up two days ago, had it ready to go and everything, and then forgot and my laptop restarted, so I lost all these notes.
> 
> Anyway! This is the last full chapter of this story! There will be an epilogue following this chapter, but the main plot is being wrapped up here. I do have plans (and wips) for more stories in this series, the next one being an outsider pov of Illya and the fam following the events of this story. If there's anything you would like to see- there are plotlines throughout this series that I have purposefully not wrapped up yet, or even just a genre you want more of, like domestic fluff or some more angst, feel free to let me know in the comments! I can't make any promises, but there's a lot more I could do with this series!

Everyone looks absolutely exhausted in the morning. Illya wakes up when Napoleon’s alarm goes off at some ungodly hour, but Napoleon just rolls over, silences it and sends off a quick text before falling straight back to sleep. Illya quickly follows him.

They wake up a few hours later and stumble out to the kitchen to find Gaby already there, mugs of coffee waiting for them. Illya slips into a seat at the pockmarked table and resists the urge to pillow his head on the tabletop. “You are a saint,” Napoleon mutters as he downs half of his coffee in one go. “Markos and Julia?”

“Still asleep, I think.” Gaby pushes her tangled hair back from her face with a grimace, and starts combing through it with her fingers. “I’ve told Waverly we’ll all be in at nine for a full debrief.”

“All of us?” Napoleon asks, glancing over at Illya. Illya takes another gulp of coffee, wincing at the heat down his throat, and checks his watch. It’s eight already. They’ll need to get a move on if they’re to make it into the office on time, though hopefully Waverly has factored in an allowance for a ten year old.

Gaby nods. “Including you. You’re a part of this now, Solo, and Moscow knows it. We’ll need to discuss protection for you as well today.”

“I can look after myself,” Napoleon says immediately. “I don’t need-”

Illya reaches out and grasps his wrist, feeling Napoleon’s pulse steadily thud beneath his fingers. “Let us do this for you,” he says quietly. “Please, Cowboy.”

Napoleon softens immediately. “Okay, Peril.” He steps in and presses a quick kiss to the top of Illya’s head. “I’ll start making breakfast. Anything Julia doesn’t eat?”

“Pork,” Illya replies as he drains his mug and gets to his feet. “Markos as well. They don’t keep kosher properly, so don’t worry about the separating meat and dairy thing, but no bacon.” He rubs a hand over his chin, grimacing slightly at the stubble there. “I’m going to go get dressed.”

By the time he’s back out, feeling slightly more human after a shower and a shave, Julia is awake and sat at the kitchen table as Napoleon doles out scrambled eggs. “Morning, Uncle Illya!” she says in Russian, sounding far more awake than anyone should be after everything she went through yesterday.

Illya ruffles her hair, easily dodging her attempt to swat him away from her. It’s a familiar ritual from the years he’s been allowed to be part of her life, which settles him a little more. “Morning, _zayka_. Is your dad awake yet?”

Whatever Julia says is indistinguishable around a mouthful of breakfast. Illya gives her a look and she swallows. “Sorry. I said he is nearly awake. I could smell breakfast, so I came out.”

“She could rival you for the amount of food it’s possible for someone to eat,” Napoleon says, also in Russian as he hands Illya a plate. “Per kilogram of person, of course, or it wouldn’t be fair.”

Julia giggles, and something becomes a little lighter in Illya’s chest at the sound. “Your accent is funny,” she says to Napoleon.

“He’s American,” Gaby faux-whispers to her across the table in much better Russian than Napoleon. “That means he doesn’t ever sound real.”

Julia is still laughing when Markos walks into the kitchen. He stutters to a stop, his eyes wide at the sound. Illya pauses where he’s leant against the counter next to Napoleon at the stove, a forkful of scrambled eggs halfway to his mouth. “Good morning,” he says quietly.

Markos clears his throat, his eyes bright. “Yes,” he replies. “Yes, it is.” He leans down to press a kiss to the top of Julia’s head. “Good morning, _solnyshka_. We are going to go into UNCLE today, which is where I’m going to work now, so finish your breakfast and go get dressed, yes?”

Julia looks up at him. “They are going to be nice to you?” she asks, her voice serious. “They won’t make you do things when you’re hurt, like he used to, or- or make me hide under my bed?”

Illya winces, the expression echoed on Napoleon and Gaby’s face. Markos’ face falls. He crouches down in front of her chair. “Oh, _solnyshka_ ,” he says softly. “No, that is not going to happen anymore. I won’t let it.”

“Okay,” Julia says with a nod. She looks over at Napoleon, who is watching them from the stove. “Are there more scrambled eggs?”

“Of course,” Napoleon says. “I think your dad needs a hug first, though.”

Markos is still crouched down next to Julia’s chair. Julia wastes no time in scrambling off the chair and throwing her arms around Markos’ neck. Markos closes his eyes and holds her close for a long moment. “Thank you,” he says to her. “Now, eat the rest of your breakfast and then we’ll get going.”

Illya presses a mug of coffee into Markos’ hands as Julia bolts down the rest of her food and then disappears back to the spare room to get dressed. “She’ll be fine,” he says quietly.

Markos wipes at his eyes with the back of his sleeve. “Of course she will,” he says, his smile wobbling slightly. “She has all of you.”

They’re only ten minutes late into UNCLE, which Illya considers a miracle considering there are five people in Napoleon’s flat and only one bathroom, and one of those people is a young child. Gaby speeds up time by braiding Julia’s hair in the back of the car as Illya drives, asking Julia about what she’s learned at school so far. By the time they arrive, Julia is asking questions about space travel, engrossed enough that she barely seems nervous walking into UNCLE.

They emerge out of the elevator and reach the bustle of the main field agents’ bullpen. Almost as one, all conversation stops as the agents turn towards them.

Julia shrinks behind Markos, clutching at his hand. At some unspoken request, Markos picks her up and Julia buries her head in his neck. He says something to her, but it’s too quiet for Illya to make out.

“Markos, welcome to the UNCLE field agents’ floor,” Gaby says. “These are the field agents currently not out on mission, also known as the idiots who don’t know when to mind their own business.” Gaby’s voice sharpens pointedly at the end, and there are near identical looks of chagrin amongst the agents as they turn back to their own work.

“This way,” Illya says. He leads them through the bullpen, ignoring the stares following them in their wake, and down the hallway to Waverly’s office.

“Ah, you’re all here.” Waverly looks up from his desk, and gestures for them to take a seat at the small table off to one side. Markos directs Julia to a seat near the door, and takes a seat next to her, putting himself between Julia and the door. Illya takes the seat on the other side of Julia, putting himself between her and Waverly as the others find seats, and Markos gives him a grateful look.

“Now,” Waverly says, joining them at the table with a thick file. “First things first, I would like you, Solo, to read and sign this non-disclosure agreement. Procedure, I’m afraid.” Napoleon flicks a glance at Illya, but pulls the papers towards him and starts reading. Waverly turns his attention to Julia. “It is a pleasure to meet you, young lady,” he says. “I trust that you understand what is going on here?”

“My dad is going to work for you,” Julia says, Markos nodding at her questioning look. “Because he can’t work for Moscow anymore. And you’re going to treat him better than they did.”

“Quite right,” Waverly says with a nod. “I will also do my best to protect both you and your father from anything that Moscow might try to do. You will be safe here, I promise you.”

There’s a few minutes of stilted small talk whilst Napoleon flips through the rest of the papers. “Seems legit,” he says eventually, and picks up a pen. “There you go. All signed.”

“Excellent.” Waverly takes the papers back, and pulls out a new set from the file. “These are employment papers for you, Chernyak. As of now, the specific department has been left blank, but we can talk about that a little later. There are all sorts of other things around this that need doing, you’ll need a British bank account, all of that, but this is the most important thing.”

Markos picks up the pen and flicks through the paper. “Hang on,” Napoleon says abruptly. He leans forwards, glancing between Markos and Waverly. “As the nominal civilian at this table, I feel that I should bring up what is hopefully obvious.” He turns to Markos. “You could quit. Retire. Go do something else. Literally anything else.”

Illya is already shaking his head. “Not possible, Cowboy. UNCLE offers protection that any other job would not, and Waverly’s influence prevents retaliation by Moscow.” Gaby winces, and he inclines his head. “Mostly.”

Markos nods. “Illya is right, Solo. I can’t quit. Not for a good few years, at least. Illya has been here for four years and they still haven’t forgotten about him. I can’t afford to give up the sort of protection UNCLE gives me.” He glances down at Julia, who is swinging her legs and folding up a piece of spare paper into what Illya thinks is the beginning of a swan. “The protection it gives us,” he says quietly.

Napoleon’s lips are pressed into a thin line. “You should be at least able to have a choice.”

Markos laughs in surprise. Illya feels the same urge, though he squashes it at the concern in Napoleon’s eyes, so obvious now he’s learnt where to look. “You think we had any choice in any of this?” Markos asks. The laughter trails off, and he regards Napoleon with a softer look. “Illya was joining the army from the moment they picked his father as a target. It would have been the only way to control him beyond throwing him into a gulag. I chose the army, only I didn’t really because it was the only option that worked for a kid from a poor family who had a kid of his own when I was nineteen, but I was picked out of the ranks by Oleg as well, first for spetsnaz and then for the SVR. Choice has very little to do with it.”

Napoleon looks away. “Well, I guess I’ll just have to register my displeasure with it,” he mutters. His gaze flashes up to Illya a moment later, and he suddenly looks guilty. “Not to say- I know how much you care about what you do here, Peril, I-”

“It’s fine,” Illya says, and he finds himself meaning it. There’s only a stir in his chest at the thought that Napoleon cares enough to say something to someone he barely knows.

It takes hours to hash out all the details. Napoleon leaves early on, once Waverly has detailed the protection that he’s going to assign Napoleon, shifts of two agents who will stay in the shop to keep an eye on Napoleon during working hours, until Illya or Gaby comes down to relieve them. To everyone’s surprise, Julia agrees to go with him down to the shop, with the promise of brownies.

With Julia gone, Markos and Illya sit around the table and pick apart Moscow for Waverly and Gaby. After an hour, Illya has to get up to pace up and down the room so he doesn’t flip a chair. Markos is almost unnaturally still in his chair as he recounts what has happened in Moscow in the years since Illya left. Gaby is taking notes, pen scratching over paper as Waverly just sits and listens.

Finally, Markos seems to run out of words. He huffs a tired laugh and rubs a hand over his face. “Seems simple, all put like that.”

“Seems like a whole lot of bullshit,” Gaby mutters. She glances up at Waverly. “Excuse my language, Sir.”

“Oh, I’ve heard far worse from you,” Waverly remarks mildly. He shuffles the papers across the table into some semblance of order. “And much more inventive. But yes, the sentiment is correct.” He shuts the file in front of him. “Time for a break, I think. We’ll discuss more after lunch.”

Markos looks like he’s about to collapse onto the table, and Illya thinks for a moment that he’s going to have to help him up. “Lunch, I think,” Gaby says as she gets up from the table and follows Waverly out. “I’ll meet you downstairs. I think Solo said something about making cornbread, so you better hurry before it’s all finished.”

Illya stays sat with Markos for a moment after the door swings shut. “It’s a lot,” he says in Russian when Markos just keeps staring down at the table. “But you made the right decision.”

Markos laughs. “Only four years too late,” he says. “I should have followed you out the moment I heard you weren’t coming back. When the leash wasn’t too tight. Instead I waited. I thought I was waiting for the right time, but I was just…waiting. I don’t know what the hell for.” His shoulders shake for a moment, but he pulls it back together with the iron grip that Illya knows Markos possesses. He laughs again, bitter and tired. “I was never as brave as you were, Illyusha.”

Illya is shaking his head before Markos even finishes his sentence. “No, it was not the same. It was never the same, Markos, and you know it.”

He hates the way Markos sounds right now. Markos had always laughed so easily, through the spetsnaz and under Oleg. He’d always been ready with a joke or quick comment whispered in Illya’s ear as they walked through the marble halls of the Kremlin, their footsteps purposefully just out of time to annoy the hell out of the bureaucrats they passed. Now, he just looks exhausted.

“There are therapists here,” Illya says quietly. “I know it is not- Moscow did not encourage…they are good. They helped me a lot- they still do, even now. They can help you as well, if you go to them.”

Markos is just staring down at the table. “You’re here now,” Illya says. He doesn’t know what else to say. The first days after Italy are all but a blur now, filled with rage and guilt and so much shame he doesn’t know how he didn’t choke on it. But Markos has always been different to him. Slower to anger, quicker to turn everything into a laugh. So much harder to read than Illya has always been, with his obvious tells that he’s never fully been able to control.

“I don’t know how to stop, Illya,” Markos says eventually. “I’ve been going for so long, and I- I was so sure that I was going to die to this. I knew it was just a matter of time. And now?” He lets out another bitter laugh. “He just said I don’t even have to be a field agent. I could have a- a fucking desk job.” His shoulders shake, and Illya doesn’t think it’s with laughter. “I’m meant to be dead within two years, Illya. I- I…”

Markos presses the heels of his hands into his eyes, shaking. Illya pulls them away after a few seconds. “Don’t,” he says. He heaves Markos up to his feet and wraps his arms around him. “Don’t you dare,” he says fiercely into his shoulder. “You are here. You made it here. Don’t you fucking dare give it up now. I’m not losing anyone else to Moscow. I’m not losing you.”

Markos grips him back, his hands digging into Illya’s shirt until Illya thinks it might rip. He doesn’t care. He’s spent nearly four years stuck on the other end of the phone, planning routes out of Moscow that he never tested, wondering where he’d gone wrong that he had managed to get out and Markos hadn’t followed behind him.

Markos shakes in his arms, and Illya tightens his grip on him. He’s here now. Julia is here now. Moscow’s grip is loosening with every moment that they refuse to be what it tried to make them into, and though sometimes it all feels like a precarious dream ready to be snatched away at any moment, he knows that it isn’t. He knows that this is real.

0-o-0-o-0

“So, Markos seems to have settled in a bit these past few weeks.”

Illya gives Gaby a look over his shoulder, as best as he can. “He’s fine,” he says.

Gaby shrugs. “It’s a big change for him, everything that happened. It’s nice to see him settle. I remember the first few months that you were here, and that time was somewhat traumatic for all the office supplies. It’s nice to not have to steal new chairs, this time round.” She pauses, but Illya knows she isn’t finished. “Do you mind him choosing to not be a field agent?” Gaby asks. She twists to face him. “You served alongside him for a long time, after all.”

Illya shrugs. “It was his choice.”

“Taking Waverly’s offer of a strategy role seems like a good fit,” Gaby offers. “And he’ll still work with us, even if it won’t be in the field like this. He must be happy about being mostly in London and not jetting off around the world like us, though.” She nods to herself. “He’s a good guy, you know.”

Illya hums. Gaby is facing away from him now, but she scrapes a foot along the floor to turn back around to face him. “No, I know the two of you have this sort of secret bro code thing and you’ve obviously been through shit together. I mean, seriously, he calls you Illyusha.” She grins at him, sharp and full of life and the same person he’s run around the world with for the best four years of his life so far. “Last time I tried to use that nickname you poured all my booze down the sink,” Gaby says. “Even Solo isn’t allowed to call you that. But I like him. I think he’s a great guy under all the fucked up shit.”

Illya snorts. “I’ll tell him you said that. No more getting angry when he tells you that you cannot blow up an embassy.”

“You have to admit, that would have been easier than what we’re doing now.” Gaby’s voice echoes slightly as she spins around again. “Oh, crap,” she says to the opposite wall. “Hang on, give me a second.”

Her toes scrape against the ground as she turns herself around again to face Illya, the chains above her head clinking as she comes back to face him. “I wish I was taller,” she mutters, eyeing the way Illya is standing almost flat against the floor, his hands gripping hold of the beam over their head that they’re both attached to. “It’s so unfair.” She tilts her head back to study her own section of the beam. “I’m going to climb up again, see if I can’t get these handcuffs off.”

“Have fun,” Illya says dryly. He watches as Gaby grips the beam and starts pulling herself up, wrapping her legs around the beam so she’s hanging from it and has enough slack in the chains to start fiddling with them.

By the time somebody actually comes to check on them, Gaby has undone both of their handcuffs and then done them back up so that it will only take them a moment to get loose. “Finally,” Gaby says when the door opens and a mercenary steps through. “Very poor accommodation here. You’re only getting one star on Yelp, I’m afraid.”

“Very funny.” A woman steps through behind the thug. “I thought you might be a bit more respectful, given the situation you are in.”

“Please,” Gaby says. “It was pure dumb luck that you, being otherwise inept criminals compared to the many others we’ve encountered, got the drop on us.” She turns to Illya. “Didn’t the first world war start because of dumb luck? And a sandwich?”

Illya snorts. “Sure. If you ignore the complicated alliance system and escalating tensions across Europe culminating in the beginnings of an arm race before the Archduke was even assassinated. Then yes, it was dumb luck.”

“But the assassination was still a significant trigger,” Gaby argues. “And occurred due to the dumb luck of the driver getting lost and driving past the sandwich shop as one of the assassins left. Which arguably, through the treaty of Versailles and the subsequent collapse of the German economy, contributed to the rise of Hitler.”

“Oh yes, if we had all just been nice to Hitler,” Illya says flatly, though he knows Gaby is only teasing at him. “Then he wouldn’t have killed millions of my people and committed genocide against multiple different ethnic groups.”

Gaby shrugs. “I’m just saying.”

The woman taps her foot on the stone floor. “If we are quite done?”

Illya exchanges a look with Gaby. “Oh, I think we are,” Gaby says with a wicked grin, and then the chains drop away from both their hands.

The people who took them really are inept, and it’s less than an hour before they’ve secured the entire place. Illya starts the search for the documents that were their goal this entire time, whilst Gaby takes the rest of the house to look for anything else that might be useful or interesting.

They take one of the cars and leave in the early hours of the evening, chasing the sun across the sky as they drive west towards the border. Gaby stops at a roadside stand and makes Illya buy a bag of oranges, which he peels as he props his feet up on the dashboard with a small knife in his pocket, juice dripping down over his fingers.

Gaby holds out a hand, and he places a segment of orange into it. “It’s nearly Christmas,” Gaby says as she pops it into her mouth, the entire car now smelling of oranges. “And a little bird told me that Waverly is going to give the two of us, at least, the entire week off, what with everything that has happened in the past few months. Do you have any plans?”

Illya leans back into his seat and picks up another orange, running his knife around the circumference and then slipping the blade underneath it. His fingers are sticky with juice. “Cowboy has already bought many tacky decorations for the shop,” he replies. He leans over and drops a piece of orange peel out of the open window, watching it fall on the road behind them in the mirror. “He wants to do Christmas dinner. Lunch? He seems to think the two are the same thing.” Gaby holds out her hand again, and he passes over another orange segment. “You are invited, of course.”

“Markos and Julia?” Gaby asks through the mouthful of orange. “They’re Jewish, right?”

“Julia is,” Illya corrects. “Her mother was Jewish, and it is matrilineal. Markos isn’t, but he kept the traditions after Karine died, so Julia would still have some connection to her religion. They only sort of practice, so they celebrate Hanukah but will join us for dinner anyway. Cowboy bought tacky Hanukah decorations as well as the Christmas ones.”

Gaby snorts. “Oh, of course he did. I suppose we’ll all be roped into putting them up when we get back?” She takes another piece of orange out of Illya’s lap when he’s too slow to hand her one. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed more and more agents getting recruited to help around the shop.”

“You volunteered to help reorganise the kitchen,” Illya points out. “And you’re the one who mentioned it to others, who then also volunteered. In their free time. Cowboy kept asking me if Waverly was going to be upset over it, and tried to make me tell everyone else that they didn’t have to help him.”

Gaby shrugs. “It’s easy work, and it’s…unimportant. Not to insult your boyfriend,” she adds quickly. “But it’s nice to help out and not have it really mean anything. Word is spreading, by the way. I had a double-oh text me about whether they could join last week. They didn’t want to presume, on him or you.”

Illya pops a segment of orange into his mouth. “I think Cowboy likes being able to help,” he says. “As long as they do not bring trouble, I don’t mind.” He peels the pith from the other half of the orange left and chucks it out the window with a small huff of laughter. “It’s not just a coffee shop anymore.”

“Hasn’t been for a long time, I think,” Gaby points out. “I like it. It feels like we’ve got a place outside of UNCLE that’s a little bit for all of us. We’ve never really had that before.” She turns the car down another road, this one stretching straight into the distance until it disappears, long shadows stretching either side of the car from the olive orchards as the sun begins to dip below the horizon. “He’s a good person. I’m glad you’ve got him.”

Illya hands her another orange segment. “Positive reinforcement?” Gaby asks with a laugh, but she takes it anyway. “I can’t wait to get both of you drunk together at every Christmas from now on.” She glances over at him. “You both are planning to stick around, right?”

“Of course,” Illya says. “Cowboy doesn’t want to go anywhere, as far as I know, and I’m not retiring from this yet.”

Gaby, surprisingly, doesn’t laugh at that. She drums her fingers on the steering wheel. “You know Waverly is training me to take over from him when he decides to retire,” she says quietly.

“I know,” Illya replies. He studies the side of her face. “We aren’t going to be partners like this forever, I know. At a point, neither of us will be quick enough to be field agents anymore. This type of work has an expiry point.”

“What will you do, once you can’t do…this?” Gaby asks hesitantly. “Will you…will you stay?”

“Who else can rein you in?” Illya asks with a wry grin. His smile softens at Gaby’s expression, and he reaches over to knock Gaby’s shoulder lightly with his fist. “I cannot be a field agent forever, but I’m not leaving. Me and you, remember?”

“Me and you,” Gaby repeats. “Until we’re old and grey, and annoyed at all the younger agents who don’t know what they’re doing and still have all their original knee joints.”

They drive for another hour or so, the sun eventually disappearing and the stars coming out. The only light around for miles is their headlights lighting up the road in front of them, and the Milky Way is visible as a bright slash across the night sky. Gaby leans forwards over the steering wheel to look at them. “For all that the job can be fucking awful sometimes,” she murmurs, staring up at the sky, “it does have its moments. It really does have its moments.”

Illya hums. The wind is ruffling his hair where he’s leant back in his seat, watching the vague shapes of olive groves flit past, and the entire car smells of oranges. He breathes in and something settles, deep within his chest. “It does,” he agrees. “And I wouldn’t do anything else.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry, Markos is getting therapy. Plenty of therapy. That scene with Illya and Gaby was I think one of my favourites of this entire series, I have loved writing their relationship in these stories.
> 
> I'm hoping to get the epilogue up sometime next week. I can't give any specific timeline for when the next story will be up, but it is mostly written, so hopefully not too long! Subscribe to this series if you want to get the notification for when it is published, and if you want to see anything in future stories, let me know in the comments!
> 
> As always, kudos and comments are much loved.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry again for this being late, it's been hellishly busy recently and I just kept forgetting to upload this final chapter. But it's finally done! This is it! The final epilogue of this story that I never actually intended to happen, but I got just so caught up in this series that I had to keep writing. And this isn't the end of the series, not at all. I have one wip on the go for this series right now, and at least two further ideas for future stories.
> 
> I'm also working on another TMFU oneshot, a fantasy AU that has been sat in my head for a very long time, because I got distracted. If you follow me on tumblr, you might have seen a snippet of it a few days ago. Hopefully it will be published in the next couple weeks, along with the new story in this series (an outsider POV following on from the events in this story).
> 
> All my regular readers will have read _oneshot_ just above and laughed. Yeah, I know it's not going to _stay_ a oneshot, but I can hope.
> 
> Enjoy.

She pushes open the door to the heady smell of cinnamon and gingerbread. The tables and chairs are put away for the day, London already dark outside, but the lights are on and there is music Gaby recognises as Elvis playing over the speaker system. The decorations, she has to admit, are actually somewhat tasteful, even though there are a lot of them. There’s a menorah set up on one of the bookshelves, a much cheaper version to the one that Markos and Julia have been lighting in their new apartment that UNCLE provided for them and they spent a whole weekend setting up together. The counter is draped with tinsel and ribbons, more hanging across the ceiling.

There’s the sound of laughter from the kitchen. Gaby ducks behind the counter and sticks her head in the back.

There are about half a dozen people around the central kitchen table, surrounded by bowls and rolling pins and scattered flour dusting every surface. Aja is singing along to the song playing, swaying in time to the beat as she kneads bread dough. Mark and April have taken up one corner and are in the middle of what looks like a fairly heated argument over whipping cream. Gaby recognises other UNCLE agents around the table, filling pie cases with bright fruits that Gaby can smell from the doorway, cutting shapes out of a slab of gingerbread dough, whisking bowls of different coloured icing. There’s someone she recognises from MI6 at the other end of the table, quietly folding butter into a pastry dough.

Julia is stood on a stool, brow furrowed in concentration as Napoleon guides her hands, clutching a piping bag, across a cookie. “Okay, so now we have the edges down, we can flood the area,” he says in Russian. “And then add the rest of the decoration on top. What colour would you like the snowman to be?”

“Purple,” Julia says decisively, and Napoleon just nods.

“An excellent choice.” He glances up to see Gaby in the doorway. “Hello, darling. You’re just in time to join the minions.”

“I object to being called minions,” Aja calls out, not looking up from her dough. “Hey, Solo, how quickly should I be adding butter to this?”

“Once you can’t see the previous knob of butter in the dough, then add another until it’s all done,” Napoleon says. “Don’t worry if it gets sticky, it’s meant to do that.” He grins at Gaby. “Christmas prep is a lot easier with a bunch of free labour. And everyone is so eager to burn off excess energy.”

Gaby can’t find it within herself to be surprised. There have been a string of difficult missions recently, and she knows more people have been finding some sort of refuge here, a quiet moment after work, a distraction in the form of a book or a card game or a lesson in kneading bread dough.

“Illya is in the back room, if you’re looking for him,” Napoleon says. “Possibly asleep, or else hustling people at poker. Last I was in there to drop off drinks, they were betting seats in the inter-agency briefing coming up that I definitely shouldn’t know about.”

“I’ll go drop in on him, and then I suppose you’ve got something for me to do?” Gaby asks.

“I always do,” Napoleon replies. “Tell my boyfriend that if he wants more hot chocolate, he has to come and get it himself and stop making Markos fetch it.”

Gaby laughs, and heads out back into the main shop. The back room was a storage room until she, Illya and a few other agents helped clear it out. Nobody has ever officially claimed it, but they all know that Napoleon put it together for them. A quiet corner for them, two sofas pushed up against the walls that Gaby knows from experience are surprisingly comfortable to sleep on, a small table and a haphazard collection of books up on shelves that she and Illya put up on a day off.

She pushes the door open to see Illya stretched out on one of the sofas, fast asleep. Markos is on the other one, book in his hands. A few more are sat around the table with cards in their hands, talking quietly in what sounds like French. She recognises one of them as a double-oh, but the other two are unfamiliar. They look up at her entrance and then turn back to the cards.

“Finally finished for today?” Markos asks quietly, looking up from his book.

“Pretty much,” Gaby replies. She glances over at the table, and then at Illya’s sleeping form. She’s sure that the two women that she doesn’t recognise are dangerous, but if they were any danger to this place specifically then they wouldn’t be here, and Illya certainly wouldn’t be asleep.

Markos catches the direction of her gaze. “Ah. You know Alec, of course. The one with the obnoxious hijab is Azra, and the other is Mylene. Old friends of ours, passing through London.” Alec gives her a grin, Azra waves at her, and Mylene glances up and gives her a quick nod before going back to study her cards. “Solo wants us to help build a gingerbread house later, if you’re in. The more steady hands the better, I suppose.” He grins. “Someone needs to help Solo control the chaos that is going to be ten highly trained operatives trying to build a gingerbread house.”

“And you’re not?” Gaby asks, arching a brow.

Markos laughs, tipping his head back. “I have a ten year old daughter. Out of everyone, I’m likely to be the one to commit most to the chaos. At least until I have to get the icing sugar out of Julia’s clothes.” He dog-ears his book and sets it aside. “Oh, I meant to ask. She needs to make a model of the solar system over the holidays for school and is insisting that it is factual. The right number of moons and everything. If you want to help with the engineering of it, I will let you blow up one unnecessary building next year. Consider it an early Christmas present.”

“Only one?” Gaby asks. She hums, making a show of considering it. “I suppose I can wear you down on it later. Also, we really need to have a discussion over what is unnecessary at some point.”

Markos laughs again. He’s been doing that more the past few weeks, as everything settles around him into a life that Gaby knows he never expected to be able to have. Gaby knows that Illya was so relieved the first time he heard Markos laugh like that again, and if he was awake there would be that small smile on his face at the laugh, at the family that has slowly formed around him in the past few years. “I spent years wrestling explosives out of Illya’s hands, and I have a daughter,” Markos says to her, laughter trailing off. “I might be the only person in UNCLE who can out-stubborn you.”

Gaby finds herself grinning. “Well, there needs to be at least one, or else it’ll just be tyranny.”

She joins in on a hand of poker, though the rules aren’t quite what she knows and there’s a pile of matchsticks and slips of paper in the centre of the table instead of money. Azra has a vicious sense of humour matched by an almost sixth sense of when someone is bluffing, and Mylene is almost impossible to read. Alec, of course, just makes outlandish bets and loses most of them.

They’re interrupted by a cough from the door, and Gaby twists to see Julia standing there, a tray of cookies in her hands. “I’ve been sent to tell you it is time for gingerbread house assembly,” she says carefully in English. “And that you are not allowed to eat cookies until you help.”

Markos fakes a gasp. “Not even for your dad?” he asks.

Julia considers it carefully. “You can have one,” she decides eventually. “But not the snowman. That is mine.”

Markos selects a holly leaf. “This is excellent, _solnyshka_ ,” he says as he takes a bite. “Let me wake up Illya and we’ll be on our way.” He glances over at Illya. “Wonder if we can get away with throwing water on him or something.”

“Oh, I’ve got an idea,” Gaby says with a grin. She heads out back into the main shop, and then for the counter where she knows Napoleon keeps a bottle of spray whipped cream for when he runs out of fresh whipped cream or can’t be bothered to make more at the end of the day.

Napoleon puts his head around the door. “Stealing from a thief, however former, is a terrible idea,” he says with a wry smile. “What are you doing with that whipped cream?”

Gaby pauses. “Um, pranking your boyfriend and my best friend?” she offers.

Napoleon pauses. He glances behind him at the kitchen. “Doesn’t look like anyone is going to burn anything down in the next five minutes,” he hazards. He grins at her. “Lead the way.”

When they get back to the back room, Markos makes a choked noise at seeing the can of whipped cream. “Everyone keep very quiet,” he whispers, and the entire room goes still in the way that only a bunch of agents and a retired art thief can manage. Illya is on his side on the sofa, still fast asleep. Gaby uncaps and shakes the cream as Napoleon very carefully teases one hand out so it’s lying flat.

Illya stirs slightly, and the entire room holds its breath. “It’s just me, Peril,” Napoleon murmurs. “Go back to sleep.”

Illya stills again. Gaby ceremoniously hands the can to Markos. “Do the honours, please.”

Markos eyes Illya, and then creeps forwards. He crouches down and very, very carefully squirts a pile of whipped cream onto Illya’s hand. “Okay,” he whispers. “Someone use a scarf or something to get his face.”

Gaby pulls the scarf off from around her neck. Everyone else eases back a few steps, and Gaby carefully dangles her scarf so the tassels at the end brush ever so lightly across Illya’s face.

Illya’s nose wrinkles, his eyes still closed, and he brings up his hand to swat at his face. Whipped cream splatters across the sofa and the floor. Illya slowly pulls his hand away, his eyes blinking against the mess of whipped cream on his face. A dollop falls from his cheek and to the floor, the sound echoing through the room.

Markos bursts out laughing.

Gaby can see the way that Illya’s face immediately softens at the sound. “Your face!” Markos gets out. “Oh, I am going to remember this one forever, Illyusha.” His phone is in his hand, and he snaps a picture before anyone can even move. Illya immediately glares at him, as much as can be seen under the smeared cream across his face.

He looks between Gaby, Markos and Napoleon. “Who do I need to kill first.”

“It was her idea!”

“Markos put the cream on your hand.”

“Solo was the one who gave us the okay, so really you should blame him.”

Illya gets to his feet slowly, wiping away the cream from his eyes with the back of his hand. “I will deal with you later,” he says first to Napoleon. “Don’t think I won’t.” He eyes Gaby, and then turns to Markos. “You need to delete that photo.”

“And deprive my daughter of the splendour that is you covered in whipped cream in the years to come?” Markos asks. He backs up a few steps. “You’ll have to catch me first.”

Gaby has just enough time to get out of the way, pulling Julia with her as Illya barrels towards Markos. Markos turns and runs, throwing the door open and sprinting for the front door out onto the street. He makes it maybe halfway as Illya’s long legs eat up the difference and he tackles Markos around the waist. Markos goes flying, slamming down into the floor and instantly twisting to dislodge Illya.

“Is anyone going to intervene?” Aja asks as she and the others appear from the kitchen, drawn by Markos’ breathless laughter and Illya’s growls of frustration as he attempts to pin Markos down long enough to wipe the cream off on Markos’ face.

“Not in the slightest,” Gaby says. She pulls out her phone and starts filming.

When the tussle is eventually over, Napoleon pulling out the big guns and sending Julia in, most of the whipped cream is over the floor. Markos wipes some away from his cheek and places a dollop onto the tip of Julia’s nose. “We’ll clean this up,” he promises as Julia squirms in his grip. “Once I do something with this feral beastie.” He hoists her up over his shoulders as she squeals with laughter, her hair falling down over her face. “Gingerbread house? We’ll have to put a menorah in the window.”

Illya gives Napoleon a look, pulling the tea towel from Napoleon’s apron and using it to wipe his face. “You are a terrible influence, Cowboy. Absolutely terrible.”

Napoleon pulls him in and presses a kiss to his lips. “You taste like lukewarm whipped cream. Lovely.” He kisses him again anyway. “Of course I’m a terrible influence. Someone needs to be around here. Now, we have a gingerbread house to construct, if my minions have managed to bake all the pieces properly. Let’s get to work.”

Julia is quickly appointed executive designer, standing up on a stool and directing everyone around her in a whirlwind of caramel and icing and candy canes. Markos and Azra are on caramel duty, dipping pieces of gingerbread into caramel and gluing them into place, with Mark and Aja holding the structure together whilst it cools. Gaby has the steadiest hands and is piping furiously to create snow along the roof or frost-covered grass in the garden, others moulding fondant into snowmen and Christmas trees, fireplaces and stockings and a tiny little dreidel to sit on the nougatine table, because Julia has decreed that the inside has to be just as decorated as the outside and so it must be done.

Markos is laughing as he tries to master creating spun caramel, spilling half of it into the floor as he flicks a caramel-dipped fork back and forth over the handle of a spoon. Azra’s hijab is somehow covered in icing sugar even though the bag is on the other side of the kitchen. Mark and April are arguing over whether a snowman should be made of two or three balls, and how important it is that it has coal buttons when nobody uses coal anymore. Gaby is elbowing people out of the way in her efforts to cover every inch of the house in intricate piping, and Aja has given up on holding the house together to look up new piping techniques for her to try. The other agents are crowded around, talking and laughing and helping out however they can, miles away from the world they usually inhabit.

Illya steps up to Napoleon’s side, where he’s leant against the counter and sipping at a mug of caj mali. “You look like an emperor, surveying your kingdom,” he remarks. He leans into Napoleon’s side and steals his mug to take a sip of the tea for himself. Napoleon just slips an arm around him.

“It’s utter chaos,” he says, and Illya can hear the smile on his lips. “I love it. We’ll have to do this every year.”

Illya hums. “Start up some new traditions.” He pauses, watching Gaby attempt a new piping technique on a piece of baking parchment, her hair mussed and her tongue sticking out the side of her mouth in concentration. Markos, listening patiently as Julia explains her latest vision and then giving out orders to the assembled agents with an easy grin curling his lips. “Family traditions.”

Napoleon presses a kiss to his temple, his lips brushing over that old scar there, from so long ago. A lifetime ago. Illya thinks of those years at Moscow, of cold marble hallways lined with red, and finds that he can barely picture it right now. Not as Gaby shouts in triumph and accidentally squirts icing all over the table. Not as Napoleon’s arm tightens around his waist, as the warmth of his body presses up against him and Napoleon tilts his head and kisses Illya, just because he can.

The song changes, and Napoleon sways slightly in time, humming along. “ _I see trees of green, and red roses too,_ ” Napoleon sings under his breath, watching the chaos unfold before them. “ _I see them bloom, for me and you_.”

After all this time, Illya knows the words.

“And I think to myself,” he continues, “what a wonderful world.”

_finis_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so, so much to every single person who has read this story, has left kudos, has commented, and especially to the people who have commented on every chapter of this story, it means so much to me. The past year has been hell in many different ways for everyone, and I know that I have been leaning on fic and stories, both writing and reading, as an escape and a distraction, and a way to create and stay in touch with the people that I love. As always, this story partially exists in thanks to somedrunkpirate, who always patiently listens to me rant my way through plotholes and character problems to the other side. And it partially exists because of all of _you_ have read and commented and generally been around enjoying this story, and all my other stories. That's incredible. Thank you so much.
> 
> To get notified for the next Coffee story, subscribe to the series! You can also subscribe to me as an author on my dashboard, or find me on tumblr 


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